Core i5-11600KF and Core i5-11400F benchmarks published: hot and not yet optimized
One of the Chinese enthusiasts from the ChipHell forum tested two Intel processors of the future Rocket Lake-S series – the Core i5-11600KF and Core i5-11400F models. Both chips have 6 cores and 12 threads, lack the integrated Intel Xe graphics core, and the former supports manual overclocking.
The declared nominal TDP level of the Core i5-11600KF model is 125 watts. According to the CPU-Z program, the base frequency of the processor is 3.9 GHz. In auto overclocking mode, it can go up to 4.9 GHz. In turn, the Core i5-11400F model has a TDP of 65 W, a base frequency of 2.6 GHz, and a Boost frequency of up to 4.4 GHz. Both chips are based on the new Cypress Cove architecture and offer full PCI Express 4.0 support.
The processors were tested on a Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Ultra motherboard with the latest BIOS to support 11th Gen Intel Core chips. The motherboard manufacturer will likely release a more optimized version of the microcode just ahead of the Rocket Lake-S series’s official launch on March 30th. Also, the system used 16 GB of ZADAK Spark DDR4-3600 RAM.
The processors were cooled by a three-fan LSS PCCooler GI-CX360 ARGB, designed to dissipate up to 350 watts. In other words, in theory, this system should be more than enough to cool the Core i5 series chips, even taking into account their PL2 index.
Under the load of the synthetic test AIDA64, the Core i5-11600KF model consumed 209 watts of power and warmed up to 85 degrees Celsius. For the Core i5-11400F, energy consumption is declared at 145 W and a temperature of 70 degrees Celsius in the same test. The results of the performance of the chips in various synthetic benchmarks can be found below.
The Chinese observer noted that both processors’ performance before their official release, with the release of new BIOS versions, may change for the better. For this reason, he did not conduct game tests.
However, he tried to overclock the Core i5-11600KF manually. The results were interesting. When the frequency was set to 4.8 and 4.9 GHz across all cores and the voltage was set to 1.4 V, the processor behaved unstably. The chip temperature rose noticeably, so the enthusiast gave up. The Core i5-11400F model does not have support for manual overclocking, but in theory, the chip’s performance can still be improved by adjusting the PL2 and Tau states. The enthusiast did not do this.
