Higher single thread performance is higher single thread performance, no matter if achieved via higher clock, doing more per clock ("IPC"), or both. If you run

Higher single thread performance is higher single thread performance, no matter if achieved via higher clock, doing more per clock ("IPC"), or both. If you run one non-parallel task, the 7700K will be faster. If you run many non-parallel tasks in… parallel (make -j16), the 1700 will be seriously faster.