Is the Core i7-8700 good for gaming?
Not for demanding modern titles. It ranks 163 of 201 for gaming and will be the limiting component in most pairings, capping frame rate before the graphics card runs out of capacity.
What GPU should I pair with a Core i7-8700?
The closest match at 1080p is the Radeon RX 6800, wasting only 2.5% of the combined potential at around 85 fps. Anything materially faster will sit partly idle at this resolution, though it can still be the right buy if you plan to move to 1440p or 4K.
Living with a Core i7-8700
This processor sits in the lower part of the range and will be the limiting component in most modern pairings. Frame rates will be capped by the chip well before the graphics card runs out of capacity, and no graphics upgrade will change that.
If frame rates are the problem, this is where the money goes. Raising the resolution will not help here in the way it does for a graphics-limited system.
A small cache holds this chip back
12 MB of L3 is modest by current standards, and it costs this chip more in games than its clock speed suggests. Game engines walk large, scattered data structures, so a small cache means more trips to main memory and more stalls on the render thread. Memory speed and timings matter unusually much on a part like this.
A note on age
Released in 2017, this chip is 9 years old. Beyond raw speed it is on an older platform, which usually means slower memory, fewer PCIe lanes and no path to a newer processor without replacing the motherboard. Factor that into any upgrade maths — the chip may not be the only thing you end up replacing.
Where it sits
Ranked 163 of 201 desktop processors for gaming. Nearest faster: Core i3-12300 , Core i5-10500 . Just below: Ryzen 5 3500X , Core i3-12100 . Full method on the methodology page.