A Year of CPU Reviews: A Look Back at 2017's Most Impressive Processors

As we close out the year, it's time to take a look back at some of the most impressive CPUs we've reviewed. One of our favorites is the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, which impressed us with its incredible power consumption and performance capabilities. With a whopping 500 watts of power consumption, this CPU is not for long-term use, but it's a great example of what can be achieved when you push a processor to its limits.

For those looking to overclock their CPUs, we highly recommend the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. This CPU is a great option for enthusiasts who want to push their processors to the limit, and its performance capabilities make it a solid choice for anyone looking for a fast CPU.

But one of the biggest surprises of 2017 was the launch of Intel's Threadripper CPUs. These CPUs have had a significant impact on the market, with prices starting at $1,000 and offering impressive performance and multi-threaded workloads. Despite being significantly more expensive than many other CPUs on the market, the Threadripper has managed to challenge Intel's own CPUs and offer an alternative for users who need high-end processing power.

For this category, we're giving a special award to AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X. This CPU is one of the best performers in its class, offering impressive multi-threaded workloads and performance capabilities that make it a great option for those who need high-end processing power.

But not every CPU launch has been a success. In fact, one of the biggest disappointments of 2017 was Intel's 8th-Gen Core CPUs, specifically the K-Series line. Launched just months after Coffee Lake, these CPUs were essentially a non-event, and their release was met with widespread disappointment from enthusiasts who felt that they were not worth the hype.

Perhaps the biggest upset of all came when AMD launched its Ryzen 7 1700, which performed admirably in gaming workloads despite being compared to Intel's i7-8700K. And yet, some commentators made claims about the Ryzen 7 1700 that simply weren't true, such as it being smoother than the i7-8700K. This kind of behavior is not only frustrating, but also misleading - and we'd like to remind our readers that just because a CPU can handle one workload well, doesn't mean it's automatically better in all use cases.

As we look back on 2017's most impressive CPUs, we're reminded of the importance of seeking out objective reality rather than making things up. Chrome and Discord may not be considered traditional multitasking workloads, but they do require robust processing power - and yet some commentators have been known to exaggerate or distort their capabilities in order to make them sound more impressive than they actually are.

The truth is that while 2017's CPUs were certainly exciting, the market is constantly evolving, and what works today may not be the same tomorrow. As we look ahead to the new year, we're excited to see what new developments will emerge from both AMD and Intel - and we can't wait to dive in and start testing them out for ourselves.

**The Verdict:**

* Best CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

* Best Overclocking CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X

* Big Surprise of the Year: Intel Threadripper CPUs

* Biggest Disappointment: Intel 8th-Gen Core CPUs (specifically K-Series line)

* Worst Trend: Commenters who make up false information about CPUs

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enour end-of-year awards shows continued now focusing on the best CPUs for 2017 this includes awards for biggest upset best overall value budget gaming and biggest disappointment along with a couple of others 2017 has given us an onslaught of CPU releases more than any year in recent memory and deserves a send-off to recap the battles in each category each of the CPUs were discussing today we'll have a link in the description below if you want to buy it and then we'll also have the reviews with them if you need to catch up on what we said about them when they first launched before we get into that this content is brought to you by the Thermaltake flow RGB closed-loop liquid cooler which is a 360 millimeter radiator plus 3 120 fans that are RGB illuminated the if then will take it rain fans at that this is a 4.5 done a detect pump which is one of the faster pumps you can learn more at the link in the description below for the CPU awards we have one CPU for each major category from the low end to the high end and because this is a CPU recap it's important here to note that as you look through older coverage will link each review in the description below for each of its respective CPUs as you look through the old coverage keep in mind that Windows updates driver updates things like that have impact on the results so you'll probably want to just look at our most recent CPU reviews which would be the coffee like 80 480 700 K ones to get the charts that include the most up-to-date numbers possible that stated again each one will be linked in the description below if you want to buy it and then we also have the respective reviews with them so let's get into it our first award best overall value teetered between the r5 1600 and I 580 400 but the r5 1600 ultimately wins the award back when the r5 CP is launched we declared the KB Lake I 5s as approaching obsolescence and awarded the r5 1600 X with our editors choice award the 8th gen launched strongly challenged the r5 s in many instances but lacking B&H motherboards and a paper supply further fuels the r5 16 hundreds receipt of our best overall value assignment the rest of the fuel stems from competitive performance across the whole suite of tests including production and reasonably competitive performance in gaming the CPU manages to keep within a couple percentage points of the i-580 400 most games tested aside from a select few titles that just don't play well with risin like destiny - and GTA 5 if those are going to be your years long obsessions maybe look at other options but for all-around performance the RFI of 1600 offers overclocking Headroom upwards of three point nine to four point one gigahertz has plenty of affordable motherboard options and maintains a strong lead in rendering workloads of course comparatively few users are going to leverage the fold production capabilities of the r5 CPUs versus those who post multitasking capabilities but the r5 CPUs give mobility for exploring beginner professional workloads which we think is important for this class of CPU it's the first CPU of its kind that lets you get into these types of workloads without a major upfront investment and that's the main reason we like the CPU it's an option that gives excellent beginner avenues to learn overclocking ones which yield very direct gains and performance while also offering beginner to intermediate options for workstation tasks gaming performance never chart tops in our tests but it's also not that far behind the 8400 and even closer when accounting for twenty six sixty six megahertz memory with a hypothetical B or H motherboard the r5 1600 receives our highest praise for its whole value proposition and we find the CPU to be a genuinely exciting gateway for inbound enthusiasts ignoring the value side of things we see Intel's i7 8700 K as the most well rounded CPU launch in the sub $500 class for the year the 8700 K and it's Z 370 platform have wide-reaching memory support high overclocking potential even on our potato chips relatively it also pushes chart-topping performance in gaming workloads short of going for a thread Ripper or skylake X the 8700 K is able to easily keep up with four gigahertz r7 CPUs and Intel's usage of the HCC Tim on the 8700 K also significantly helps with its thermals this makes the CPU completely reasonable to operate even without a deal it though d-lighting does still grant tremendous gains to aid and power leakage reduction something we showed in our review overall the 8700 K is a strong showing from Intel and was the company's return to form after years of small increments in Thals may have the six core 12 threat is just as important for AMD as it is for Intel as the transition will help secure development focus on multi-core optimization for years to come 87 hired K also improves in key areas were in to us falling behind like the improvement to thermal performance by way of die area increases and HCC Tim and the CPU also exhibits strong performance in h.264 live stream encoding an area where the previous 7700 K was heavily outmatched by the 1700 it's just a matter of whether you can find one in stock unfortunately and whether that retailer is selling them close to the suggested price of roughly 370 dollars maybe you don't care much about gaming though and need something that's a bit more money efficient the r7 1700 takes our award for best value for production as a cpu since its launch we have held the r7 1,700 high over the heads of its 1700 x and 1800 x neighbors and time and again it demonstrates how easily the r7 1700 is overclocked to achieve similar if not better performance to the more expensive alternatives with pricing that regularly seen sales as low as $270 but commonly sitting around 300 the r7 1700 easily takes this award we see the 1700 as a good fit for small business or hobbyist and freelance workstation users people who might do things like 3d animation or modeling for instance or other render centric tasks that can benefit from core account the r7 1700 stands alone and its value offering for such users and its AMD's best launch in the r7 family its power efficient as overclocking Headroom and handles multi-threaded render workloads readily and it's also affordable the next award is for the best budget gaming CPU we're looking at ultra budget here I send cheapest possible gaming build that still remains reasonably scalable and this goes to the Intel Pentium G 45 60 the G 45 60 has lived a troubled life thus far like the g3 2 5 8 before it the 45 60 saw instant success in low budget markets and quickly sold out the CPU also shot up in price has gone through supply shortages and up until recently has been difficult to get a hold of finally though the 45 60 is readily available and it's still slightly higher than desired at a price of 70 to 80 dollars but one of the best options for a dirt cheap desktop gaming PC the senior performs reasonably in most games we've tested we even performed AG 45 60 GPU bottleneck and test earlier this year finding that the CPU didn't significantly choke on GPUs until entering into the GTX 970 territory the G 45 60 is well suited for our x5 70s and 4 seventies gtx 750ti s and even GTX 10 sixties but now for purposes of balancing system cost we'd recommend staying in the sub $200 EP price range that said you've got room to go a little beyond that not much but it's there and for the most part the CB does well in games there are as a couple that it struggles with just make sure you check our original benchmarks to figure out if those apply to you for win cost is the heaviest restriction and $120 I three CDs aren't an option the G 45 60 remains competitive our next award goes to the 79 60 X for being the most fun to overclock this year required a lot of prep work d letting and some conductor not to set the stage with big radiators and high end fans doing the rest this award is shared equally I suppose by the a C's X 299 rampage board for its limitless nya overwhelming overclocking options and sub options and a direct fan on the vrm d lid later and we were able to push the 79 60 X into the range of 4.7 gigahertz with just a 360 millimeter radiator we were nearly stable at 4.8 to but some further tuning may have achieved it pushing 4.7 on a 16 core CPU and what is an actual potential user scenario is impressive to say the least it's a 500 watt power consumption doing so of course so it's impractical for long-term use but it's a fun day of testing and it reinvigorates the enthusiasts spirit of it if you're looking for overclocking we do like the 79 60 X for that task and it is a good CPU as well just a bit expensive when you look at our next category and that one is the biggest upset of 2017 this one goes to the thread Ripper CPU before thread Ripper we thought this would go to the our 5s but the thread Ripper and X to 99 shipments completely changed the h EDT landscape thread rivers launch up set the high end mark in a way that has had wide-reaching impact at its price the one thousand dollar threader for 1950 ex has some of the best performance and heavily multi-threaded workloads and has challenged most heavily by significantly more expensive Intel CPUs additional PCIe lanes become highly valuable in use cases that are left otherwise unserved at this price point and thread Ripper manages to serve both traditional HD DT and fringe h EDT users exceptionally well for this category we do favor the 1950 X oh and before someone begins type in a gigantic tirade please note that the words biggest upset aren't a bad thing we're saying that it upset the incumbent in the market not that it's upsetting that goes to the next category and that's biggest disappointment across all the products launched this year and there were many contenders for biggest disappointment the absolute hands-down winner of this dunce cap is the KB Lake X cpu line we were clear in our dislike of this lineup when it launched some of you took issue with our quote disrespectful tossing of the 77 40 X CPU but that's a minor grievance when compared to how Intel tossed KB Lake X users aside instantly with coffee lake mere months after its a nearly pointless launch the languishing that KB Lake X CPU argument became more belaboured in the face of copy Lake the KB Lake X launch is the single biggest CBD disappointment since bulldozer it's not horribly performing but it also has no wide reaching at mainstream defense to its existence this is not a matter of performance it's a matter of why it exists the product line it was a segmentation attempt from the start and has remained such through the rest of the year the final award is for worst trend we're using this one to call out commenters AMD and Intel have both put out some good CPUs this year and when we look at head-to-head matchups at the same price there tend to be victories on both sides of the fence the worst trend award goes to everyone who felt it necessary to forge new truths also known as talking out of your ass or lying and this is for the people who felt it necessary to defend their preferred CPU in every single use case whether or not the CPU made sense in that use case news flash no one CPU will be the best everything hand when something like risin or coffee-like are as good as they are at the respective strengths there is no need to make things up no objectively speaking NR seven 1700 is not quote smoother in gaming than a modern i7 and no an 8700 K does not invalidate these 1700 as a world-class production CPU it's possible for both of these CPUs to coexist and dominate different markets fortunately they're both fairly versatile so they have some crossover between them where you can even do things like gaming on one or production on the other so this is an instance where we don't need to go around posting comments that straight make things up because seriously the CPUs are good enough on their own they don't need your help just stick to the actual reality of them so separately with the advent of the six core Intel CPUs and the Rison push further on eight cores six cores and so on we'd like to remind everyone that Chrome and discord don't count as multitasking that's not really what people mean when they talk about multitasking oh and before anyone says but my cores we're not saying it's a bad thing for the industry to move in this direction we're just saying seek to understand what the change actually does for you rather than making things up so that's all for this one we've got some good CPUs on the list and we've got some great comments on the list thank you for a year of those and we hope you appreciated a year of CPU reviews I think we're done with the reviews of CPUs for the end of the year though hopefully but there will be more to come sometime around or after CES so stay tuned for all that you can subscribe for more as always patreon.com slash gamers Nexus helps out directly links to the products and the reviews in the description below and I'll see you all next timeour end-of-year awards shows continued now focusing on the best CPUs for 2017 this includes awards for biggest upset best overall value budget gaming and biggest disappointment along with a couple of others 2017 has given us an onslaught of CPU releases more than any year in recent memory and deserves a send-off to recap the battles in each category each of the CPUs were discussing today we'll have a link in the description below if you want to buy it and then we'll also have the reviews with them if you need to catch up on what we said about them when they first launched before we get into that this content is brought to you by the Thermaltake flow RGB closed-loop liquid cooler which is a 360 millimeter radiator plus 3 120 fans that are RGB illuminated the if then will take it rain fans at that this is a 4.5 done a detect pump which is one of the faster pumps you can learn more at the link in the description below for the CPU awards we have one CPU for each major category from the low end to the high end and because this is a CPU recap it's important here to note that as you look through older coverage will link each review in the description below for each of its respective CPUs as you look through the old coverage keep in mind that Windows updates driver updates things like that have impact on the results so you'll probably want to just look at our most recent CPU reviews which would be the coffee like 80 480 700 K ones to get the charts that include the most up-to-date numbers possible that stated again each one will be linked in the description below if you want to buy it and then we also have the respective reviews with them so let's get into it our first award best overall value teetered between the r5 1600 and I 580 400 but the r5 1600 ultimately wins the award back when the r5 CP is launched we declared the KB Lake I 5s as approaching obsolescence and awarded the r5 1600 X with our editors choice award the 8th gen launched strongly challenged the r5 s in many instances but lacking B&H motherboards and a paper supply further fuels the r5 16 hundreds receipt of our best overall value assignment the rest of the fuel stems from competitive performance across the whole suite of tests including production and reasonably competitive performance in gaming the CPU manages to keep within a couple percentage points of the i-580 400 most games tested aside from a select few titles that just don't play well with risin like destiny - and GTA 5 if those are going to be your years long obsessions maybe look at other options but for all-around performance the RFI of 1600 offers overclocking Headroom upwards of three point nine to four point one gigahertz has plenty of affordable motherboard options and maintains a strong lead in rendering workloads of course comparatively few users are going to leverage the fold production capabilities of the r5 CPUs versus those who post multitasking capabilities but the r5 CPUs give mobility for exploring beginner professional workloads which we think is important for this class of CPU it's the first CPU of its kind that lets you get into these types of workloads without a major upfront investment and that's the main reason we like the CPU it's an option that gives excellent beginner avenues to learn overclocking ones which yield very direct gains and performance while also offering beginner to intermediate options for workstation tasks gaming performance never chart tops in our tests but it's also not that far behind the 8400 and even closer when accounting for twenty six sixty six megahertz memory with a hypothetical B or H motherboard the r5 1600 receives our highest praise for its whole value proposition and we find the CPU to be a genuinely exciting gateway for inbound enthusiasts ignoring the value side of things we see Intel's i7 8700 K as the most well rounded CPU launch in the sub $500 class for the year the 8700 K and it's Z 370 platform have wide-reaching memory support high overclocking potential even on our potato chips relatively it also pushes chart-topping performance in gaming workloads short of going for a thread Ripper or skylake X the 8700 K is able to easily keep up with four gigahertz r7 CPUs and Intel's usage of the HCC Tim on the 8700 K also significantly helps with its thermals this makes the CPU completely reasonable to operate even without a deal it though d-lighting does still grant tremendous gains to aid and power leakage reduction something we showed in our review overall the 8700 K is a strong showing from Intel and was the company's return to form after years of small increments in Thals may have the six core 12 threat is just as important for AMD as it is for Intel as the transition will help secure development focus on multi-core optimization for years to come 87 hired K also improves in key areas were in to us falling behind like the improvement to thermal performance by way of die area increases and HCC Tim and the CPU also exhibits strong performance in h.264 live stream encoding an area where the previous 7700 K was heavily outmatched by the 1700 it's just a matter of whether you can find one in stock unfortunately and whether that retailer is selling them close to the suggested price of roughly 370 dollars maybe you don't care much about gaming though and need something that's a bit more money efficient the r7 1700 takes our award for best value for production as a cpu since its launch we have held the r7 1,700 high over the heads of its 1700 x and 1800 x neighbors and time and again it demonstrates how easily the r7 1700 is overclocked to achieve similar if not better performance to the more expensive alternatives with pricing that regularly seen sales as low as $270 but commonly sitting around 300 the r7 1700 easily takes this award we see the 1700 as a good fit for small business or hobbyist and freelance workstation users people who might do things like 3d animation or modeling for instance or other render centric tasks that can benefit from core account the r7 1700 stands alone and its value offering for such users and its AMD's best launch in the r7 family its power efficient as overclocking Headroom and handles multi-threaded render workloads readily and it's also affordable the next award is for the best budget gaming CPU we're looking at ultra budget here I send cheapest possible gaming build that still remains reasonably scalable and this goes to the Intel Pentium G 45 60 the G 45 60 has lived a troubled life thus far like the g3 2 5 8 before it the 45 60 saw instant success in low budget markets and quickly sold out the CPU also shot up in price has gone through supply shortages and up until recently has been difficult to get a hold of finally though the 45 60 is readily available and it's still slightly higher than desired at a price of 70 to 80 dollars but one of the best options for a dirt cheap desktop gaming PC the senior performs reasonably in most games we've tested we even performed AG 45 60 GPU bottleneck and test earlier this year finding that the CPU didn't significantly choke on GPUs until entering into the GTX 970 territory the G 45 60 is well suited for our x5 70s and 4 seventies gtx 750ti s and even GTX 10 sixties but now for purposes of balancing system cost we'd recommend staying in the sub $200 EP price range that said you've got room to go a little beyond that not much but it's there and for the most part the CB does well in games there are as a couple that it struggles with just make sure you check our original benchmarks to figure out if those apply to you for win cost is the heaviest restriction and $120 I three CDs aren't an option the G 45 60 remains competitive our next award goes to the 79 60 X for being the most fun to overclock this year required a lot of prep work d letting and some conductor not to set the stage with big radiators and high end fans doing the rest this award is shared equally I suppose by the a C's X 299 rampage board for its limitless nya overwhelming overclocking options and sub options and a direct fan on the vrm d lid later and we were able to push the 79 60 X into the range of 4.7 gigahertz with just a 360 millimeter radiator we were nearly stable at 4.8 to but some further tuning may have achieved it pushing 4.7 on a 16 core CPU and what is an actual potential user scenario is impressive to say the least it's a 500 watt power consumption doing so of course so it's impractical for long-term use but it's a fun day of testing and it reinvigorates the enthusiasts spirit of it if you're looking for overclocking we do like the 79 60 X for that task and it is a good CPU as well just a bit expensive when you look at our next category and that one is the biggest upset of 2017 this one goes to the thread Ripper CPU before thread Ripper we thought this would go to the our 5s but the thread Ripper and X to 99 shipments completely changed the h EDT landscape thread rivers launch up set the high end mark in a way that has had wide-reaching impact at its price the one thousand dollar threader for 1950 ex has some of the best performance and heavily multi-threaded workloads and has challenged most heavily by significantly more expensive Intel CPUs additional PCIe lanes become highly valuable in use cases that are left otherwise unserved at this price point and thread Ripper manages to serve both traditional HD DT and fringe h EDT users exceptionally well for this category we do favor the 1950 X oh and before someone begins type in a gigantic tirade please note that the words biggest upset aren't a bad thing we're saying that it upset the incumbent in the market not that it's upsetting that goes to the next category and that's biggest disappointment across all the products launched this year and there were many contenders for biggest disappointment the absolute hands-down winner of this dunce cap is the KB Lake X cpu line we were clear in our dislike of this lineup when it launched some of you took issue with our quote disrespectful tossing of the 77 40 X CPU but that's a minor grievance when compared to how Intel tossed KB Lake X users aside instantly with coffee lake mere months after its a nearly pointless launch the languishing that KB Lake X CPU argument became more belaboured in the face of copy Lake the KB Lake X launch is the single biggest CBD disappointment since bulldozer it's not horribly performing but it also has no wide reaching at mainstream defense to its existence this is not a matter of performance it's a matter of why it exists the product line it was a segmentation attempt from the start and has remained such through the rest of the year the final award is for worst trend we're using this one to call out commenters AMD and Intel have both put out some good CPUs this year and when we look at head-to-head matchups at the same price there tend to be victories on both sides of the fence the worst trend award goes to everyone who felt it necessary to forge new truths also known as talking out of your ass or lying and this is for the people who felt it necessary to defend their preferred CPU in every single use case whether or not the CPU made sense in that use case news flash no one CPU will be the best everything hand when something like risin or coffee-like are as good as they are at the respective strengths there is no need to make things up no objectively speaking NR seven 1700 is not quote smoother in gaming than a modern i7 and no an 8700 K does not invalidate these 1700 as a world-class production CPU it's possible for both of these CPUs to coexist and dominate different markets fortunately they're both fairly versatile so they have some crossover between them where you can even do things like gaming on one or production on the other so this is an instance where we don't need to go around posting comments that straight make things up because seriously the CPUs are good enough on their own they don't need your help just stick to the actual reality of them so separately with the advent of the six core Intel CPUs and the Rison push further on eight cores six cores and so on we'd like to remind everyone that Chrome and discord don't count as multitasking that's not really what people mean when they talk about multitasking oh and before anyone says but my cores we're not saying it's a bad thing for the industry to move in this direction we're just saying seek to understand what the change actually does for you rather than making things up so that's all for this one we've got some good CPUs on the list and we've got some great comments on the list thank you for a year of those and we hope you appreciated a year of CPU reviews I think we're done with the reviews of CPUs for the end of the year though hopefully but there will be more to come sometime around or after CES so stay tuned for all that you can subscribe for more as always patreon.com slash gamers Nexus helps out directly links to the products and the reviews in the description below and I'll see you all next time\n"