how many years of gaming will this future proof me if i do buy it?
Quite a few, if we judge from other "revolutionary" chips from Intel, for example the i7 2600K. You'll probably want to get a proper motherboard that allows you 5GHz without any fear of frying the VRM, not for now, but for the future. The Sandy Bridge I mentioned is still a great chip specifically because of its ability to OC and meet today's standards, as well as the often (wrongly) ignored hyperthreading.
So I'd say 3 years with great performance, and 6+ years with some performance degradation. The higher the resolution you will play at, the less performance degradation from the CPU, as you're pushing the GPU instead.
Imho if you're planning to use the CPU possibly for 6+ years, you don't want to OC it immediately, and especially don't want to increase the voltages. That doesn't do good for the durability of the processor.
It's better to keep it at stock voltages and no OC or at most very small OC for the first couple of years. Then do something more aggressive only once it starts getting old and there's much less to lose should it break.
You don't need to OC the 8700K (for gaming) unless you're running a high refresh 1080p monitor and a 1080ti+. For pretty much everything else stock is enough.
But if you do OC, this CPU is a bit different with voltages and stuff. Basically all z370 motherboards feed lots of voltage into these CPUs, so you can see up to 1.33V easily for some scenarios (for example a High Performance power plan and idling around would shoot the CPU to 4600-4700MHz due to its Turbo Boost; to achieve these frequencies a motherboard would run 1.32-1.33V into the boosted cores; on load frequencies drop, and voltages too, so the CPU can maintain TDP).
So we have a situation where the CPU is normally fed almost the maximum recommended of 1.35V into the CPU regardless of overclocking or not. But more importantly, a lot of 8700Ks don't need that voltage at all, and it's not uncommon to see stable 5GHz on 1.28V or something, so at that point you'd have to be wondering what's safer for the CPU - OC and manual, lower voltages, or not OC and Auto voltages that reach quite high.
IMO the best solution is to see what's best in your case. Lower end motherboard with pretty bad VRM? Just leave as it is or slap a 4.7GHz on all cores and lower Vcore as much as possible while remaining stable under stress testing.
Decent motherboard with good VRM and nice cooler? Depends on how much your CPU needs to go to 5GHz. If it's a lot of voltage, like 1.38V, you might need to delid to run it cooler. If you can do 5GHz on 1.25V, lucky you, probably delidding is unnecessary.
To go beyond 5GHz you really need lots of cooling and a delidded CPU. These things get really hot.
In the end, the 8700K remains awesome in all of these scenarios.
Problem with your scenario, Intel cpus tend to run hot just stock, you overclock them and you are definitely taking a huge chance you will shorten it's life. As to delidding, only a nutcase would do that.
I have a cheap cooler and not delidded, and a pretty bad chip that needs 1.35V for 5GHz, and even like this I can still do 4.9GHz. Temps? AAA 2018 Gaming, 65C. Prime95, 80C. Prime95 with AVX, 85C. Stock can still hit 70C under prime /w AVX.
I know, I know. People are not used to these chips, they are still thinking you're supposed to hit 60C at most and other such stuff, and 90C scares them. The thing is, the CPU does not even throttle until 100C, so Intel is considering that the top limit, and they are always on the safe side.
Times change. I'm sure you can run the Kaby Lake series, including this 6 core incarnation at temps up to 90C easily. Do I like it? Hell no. It's actually not the CPU I am worried about. It's the VRMs on the motherboard, which can easily reach 120C on some models.
As for delidding, personally I am not doing it, not because I think it's stupid, but because I'm too poor to risk my CPU, i.e. I want the warranty. But for a person who doesn't feel like 350USD is lots of money, they should definitely do it. Intel is at fault here with their crap TIM between the die and IHS. Delidding results in 15-25C temp drops, absolutely incredible.
Also there are kits for it. It's safe to do, about the same levels of safe as mounting a videocard or CPU or a more complicated big cooler. Only problem is voiding warranty, but again that's a problem for people like me, I'd wager somebody living is a civilized, Western, non-shithole country with a half-decent job 350USD is hardly something to be worried of.
Well I wish you luck, but experience says your processor will not last very long, hope you have intent on upgrading in the next few years. Personally, I usually keep a cpu at least 5 years and upgrade the graphics card every 2 or 3 years.
I've been overclocking for about 12 years now and I've haven't had a chip fail yet. The oldest system I have still in service with an OC is the system I'm typing this on. Its is an I980X that I bought back in 2010.
Think I have one of the original intel 4 cores still running on a workstation in the office, can't remember for sure and I would have to check. Anything else ended up in the trash because it was obsolete, not because it died.
My current gaming rig is a 4770k running @ 4.6ghz since 2013.
My current flightsim rig is a 7700k running @5.1 and is the first cpu I've ever delidded. It's been running for just over a year so far and after the delidding it peaks @ 68c during stress testing. Used a rocket cool unit which made the delidding process very easy.
Hyperthreading enabled on both systems.
I don't OC for gaming, I OC for flightsims, performance is real and needed.
"your processor won't last you very long" bit Is something I haven't experienced yet. Maybe if your trying to push boundaries or you make a dumb mistake, your statement might ring true.
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Think I have one of the original intel 4 cores still running on a workstation in the office, can't remember for sure and I would have to check. Anything else ended up in the trash because it was obsolete, not because it died.
My current gaming rig is a 4770k running @ 4.6ghz since 2013.
My current flightsim rig is a 7700k running @5.1 and is the first cpu I've ever delidded. It's been running for just over a year so far and after the delidding it peaks @ 68c during stress testing. Used a rocket cool unit which made the delidding process very easy.
Hyperthreading enabled on both systems.
I don't OC for gaming, I OC for flightsims, performance is real and needed.
"your processor won't last you very long" bit Is something I haven't experienced yet. Maybe if your trying to push boundaries or you make a dumb mistake, your statement might ring true.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee