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KabyLakeDie

Today, Intel is taking the lid off its seventh Generation Core microprocessor family, codenamed Kaby Lake. It's been roughly five years since Intel last delivered a pregnant performance leap in a single generation and the Core i7-7700K has a number of challenges riding on its shoulders. This is the first new big-cadre processor since Intel switched from Tick-Tock, which alternated new procedure nodes with new architectures, to a three-step Process-Architecture-Optimization strategy. This is the second iteration of the Skylake core, but it'southward implemented on an advanced 14nm node, as Intel disclosed earlier this year. It'southward likewise the first Intel processor to support new Optane SSDs, provided the appropriate chipset is used (more on that later).

The Core i7-7700K too has the stardom of existence the terminal chip generation Intel will launch before AMD's own Ryzen (née Zen) architecture debuts subsequently this quarter, and you lot can bet AMD volition be watching these results very closely when it comes to calibrating the speeds and feeds of their own CPU core. Put it all together, and this CPU launch is going to matter more than most. Let's take a look at what we've got to talk about — first the platform, followed past the CPU and its operation.

The Z270 chipset

The Cadre i7-7700K and Core i7-6700K are both backwards and forrard-compatible, significant you tin can driblet a sixth-generation core into a new Z270 motherboard or pair a 7th-generation scrap with the older Z170. We've covered the major differences below.

Z270-Diagram

DRAM frequency: While we've had no trouble using DDR4-3200 for our tests today, Z170'south official support tops out at 2133MHz, compared with 2400MHz for Z270.

Boosted PCIe southbridge lanes: The Z170 supports 20 PCIe iii.0 lanes off the southbridge, Z270 offers 24.

Intel Smart Connect: Intel Smart Connect periodically wakes your PC to download email or receive periodic button updates. This technology used to be offered on sure Intel desktop chipsets, but was removed later on the Z87 debuted. The Z270 adds it every bit an optional feature.

There are a few new capabilities that require both a Z270 motherboard and a 7th generation CPU.

4K content streaming: 4K streaming is limited to Z270 boards and Kaby Lake CPUs, either because Intel only implemented full support for Microsoft's PlayReady three.0 in its latest chips, or because only the seventh generation family supports hardware accelerated decode for 10-bit HEVC. 4K playback also requires at least the Anniversary Update of Windows 10 and is currently merely available via Microsoft Border.

Intel Optane memory support: According to Intel, Optane will exist available both equally primary memory and equally the storage medium of selection for SSDs. The company has not clarified what interface its SSD drives will use, or if information technology intends to offer SATA, PCI-Limited cards, or Grand.ii-uniform chips. Optane retention (which ways DIMMs) will but be bachelor for Z270 chipsets, while Optane SSDs should be uniform with other platforms that support whatsoever standard Intel decides to ship.

One notable missing feature? USB iii.one Gen ii support. Gen 2 offers transfer speeds of up to 10Gb/south, simply Intel hasn't built a native controller capable of operating at these clock speeds. Some vendors may include back up for this option, either by integrating third-party controllers or by using Intel'southward Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt iii solution, which also offers USB 3.1 Gen ii support.

The seventh-Gen Core i7 family unit

Intel is launching a number of Core i3, i5, and i7 desktop CPUs today, simply the cores themselves are simply modestly different than what we saw with Skylake dorsum in 2022. As we've previously discussed, Kaby Lake is built on a new second-generation 14nm procedure node with a predicted 12% performance increase. H.265 Main10 and VP9 8-chip and 10-bit are now fully supported in hardware (encode and decode) which will significantly reduce power consumption when playing content encoded in these formats. The bit will also allow for improved transition into and out-of clock states (Intel calls this Speed Shift Technology, as shown below).

Intel-Kaby-Lake3

The Cadre i7-7700K we'll be reviewing today has a base clock of 4.2GHz and a maximum turbo frequency of 4.5GHz (our chip topped out at iv.4GHz under full load). That compares well against the Core i7-6700K (4GHz base of operations, 4.2GHz Turbo), especially since our 6700K refused to budge above 4GHz under load, despite enough of thermal and ability headroom.

On paper, the Core i7-7700K is only 5% and 7% faster than the 6700K in terms of base clock and turbo clock, but the applied results we saw showed a larger clock gap in practice. Intel'due south other 7th generation SKUs show slightly larger gaps — the Core i5-7600K (3.8GHz base of operations, 4.2GHz Turbo) has a nine% higher base clock and an viii% higher boost clock than the Cadre i5-6600K (3.5GHz base, three.9GHz Turbo). This trend holds true even at lower TDPs, the Cadre i5-7400T has a 35W TDP, a base clock of 2.4GHz, and a max boost clock of 3GHz. The 6400T, in contrast, has a 2.2GHz base of operations clock and a 2.8GHz boost clock.

Special mention: Intel'southward new, unlocked Core i3

A few years ago, Intel launched a 20th Anniversary Pentium (G3258). The diminutive dual-core was positioned like a budget part, at $72, but could hitting overclocks of iv.seven – 4.8GHz fairly easily. While that didn't make the core a unilateral winner in every case, information technology was an intriguing option for overclockers on a budget. Now, Intel is planning to offer an unlocked Core i3 processor, its first ever. The Core i3-7350K will accept two cores, four threads, a flat 4.2GHz clock speed, and an unlocked multiplier. Cost is set at $162 in 1000-unit quantities.

This compares well against the Cadre i3-6320, the current top-cease Intel Core i3 from the Skylake generation. That core tops out at 3.9GHz and has a list price of $149 – $157. While the Core i3-7350K is considerably more expensive than the Pentium G3258, it's also significantly more capable thank you to higher base clock speeds and Hyper-Threading support. While dual cadre processors without Hyper-Threading have been pushed to the bargain bin, the Core i3's bones configuration is mirrored in most of Intel'due south mobile production lineup. With laptops outselling desktops significantly these days, dual-core CPUs aren't going anywhere anytime shortly. If Intel's Core i3-7350K can striking the aforementioned iv.8GHz clock speeds every bit the Pentium G3258 it could cement itself every bit an enthusiast darling.

Our test board: The Asus Strix Z270E Gaming

Every good CPU needs a skilful motherboard and Asus was kind enough to offer their Strix Z270E Gaming platform for our tests today. This new platform fully supports the BCLCK overclocking that Kaby Lake implements and tin can run DDR4 memory at upwards to 3866MHz. Both AMD and Nvidia multi-GPU configurations are supported via the PCI-Express slots (the board technically supports up to three video cards, simply the third PCIe slot is just electrically x4. Up to 64GB of retentivity is supported, though gamers who desire to button DRAM speed and capacity may, as always, have to make some trade-offs between the two to ensure organisation stability. Nosotros recommend consulting Asus' retention recommendations earlier pulling the trigger.

Asus-1

Of the dual M.ii ports supported past the board, both of them can be configured as either PCIe three.0 x4 devices or as SATA fashion devices. If you opt for SATA way, it means sharing port bandwidth with several of the other SATA ports on the motherboard. USB three.1 Gen 2 support is provided by Asmedia. The board supports the use of USB 3.ane Gen 2 for both forepart and rear USB three.1 connections, pregnant y'all've got ane front-mounted port, one rear Type-A, i rear Type-C, and an additional six USB 3.0 ports provided past the native Intel controller.

Wireless and Bluetooth iv.ane back up are provided on-board, with support for 802.11ac and both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. The Z270E'southward SupremeFX audio solution is via the ALC S1220A codec. The integrated LEDs do nothing to amend performance, but they do light up the board nicely (additional board details and photos are bachelor in the slideshow below).

We didn't have time to put the Z270E Strix Gaming through its paces as thoroughly as we would've liked, with this launch coming hard on the end of the holiday season. I'd exist remiss non to notation that our overall feel with the board has been fantabulous. Early boards with tight launch schedules tin exist a crapshoot, simply the Asus Z270E Strix Gaming is solid, with a well-organized UEFI, a multifariousness of options for overclockers and neophytes alike, and support for automatic overclocking that we plan to revisit at a later date. With a street price set at $199 it'southward not the cheapest 200-series motherboard on the market, but at that place'southward a lot of value here.

Now that we've stepped through the motherboard, CPU, and chipset, let'south take a await at overall performance.

Test Setup

It's been a footling while since ET published a full CPU review, which meant it was time to throw out erstwhile, legacy results and start from scratch. We're still working on building out a new test suite and gathering results in preparation for AMD's Ryzen launch subsequently this quarter, so this specific review is limited to three CPUs in total: The Core i7-7700K, the Core i7-6700K (both tested in the Asus Strix Z270E Gaming motherboard) also as Intel'south 10-core Core i7-6950X and its accompanying Gigabyte GA-X99-Ultra Gaming motherboard.

All of our CPUs were configured with four 8GB sticks of DDR4-3200 courtesy of GSkill (F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ). We had no trouble running the RAM at 3200MHz with Skylake, Kaby Lake, or Broadwell-EP, fifty-fifty though the maximum clock speed was essentially college than anything these chips are formally rated for. All of our CPUs were tested using Windows 10 patched up to the latest version, with a 750W Antec 80 Plus Gold power supply, a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, and a Gigabyte GTX 1070 8GB running Nvidia'southward 376.33 drivers.

The 6950X wouldn't have been my get-go selection for a direct comparison to the 6700K and 7700K, only information technology does give us the opportunity to contrast the performance of Intel's standard quad-core + HyperThreading CPUs confronting a 10-cadre behemoth running at a lower clock rate (3GHz base of operations, 3.5GHz maximum all-core Turbo). With a 1KU toll of over $1700, the 6950X isn't cheap, and then it's worth checking where those cores deliver and where they fall short against more conventional CPUs.

Notation: While we intended to benchmark both Culture VI and Ashes of the Singularity, Civilisation VI will only shop one file of benchmark results for each of its two benchmarks, despite going to the trouble of generating custom names for every benchmark run and informing the end-user that these issue files have been saved to deejay. This is presumably an blow, since it makes no sense to get to the trouble of creating custom-named log files only to dump the files thereafter, just since we didn't discover this errata until nosotros went to compare the results, we did not take fourth dimension to retest that game.

Our benchmark results are given below. All three of our Blender Return benchmarks can exist downloaded here. Each graph inside the slideshow can be clicked to open it in a new window.

Power Consumption

Our power consumption results need a scrap of explanation. When we configured the Core i7-6950X for testing, we noticed dramatically different power consumption, fifty-fifty at idle, depending on whether we configured the organisation to employ Intel's Extreme Retention Profile. Without XMP enabled, the Core i7-6950X idled at 65W and ran all-out at 168W. With XMP enabled, the chip turned in a consequent 107W idle draw, with a 210W arrangement power draw in Prime95. This effect persisted even subsequently we manually checked and configured the CPU to brand certain Gigabyte'southward UEFI settings weren't overriding Intel's preprogrammed Turbo frequencies. We opted to exam the 6950X with the aforementioned memory configuration and timings we had used for our Asus Strix Z270E Gaming motherboard, since non-using those settings proved to touch on the chip's performance in several tests and would non have been a true apples-to-apples comparing.

PowerConsumption

Right away, we see the benefits of Intel's improved 14nm process. Our Cadre i7-6700K ran at a consistent 4GHz in all our criterion tests, while our Cadre i7-7700K preferred a 4.4GHz clock. Intel is pushing a 10% college clock rate in Prime95, while power consumption for the 7700K is actually downward slightly from the 6700K. But — and this is disquisitional — it's only down slightly. I'1000 not running temperature figures at this betoken considering of a configuration issue with my Peltier+air cooler that lowered its overall efficiency, but the information I gathered suggests that the Core i7-7700K runs hotter than the Cadre i7-6700K, even if the difference isn't very big.

Leaked overclocking results suggest that Intel's conclusion to apply thermal paste instead of solder to connect the 7700K's estrus spreader to the dice has resulted in poor overall thermal electrical conductivity, and it's not clear how skillful of an overclocker the core will turn out to be. I suspect the answer is "not very." Intel clearly picked upward some performance gains from its new 14nm process, merely a careful comparison of its onetime 6th Gen SKUs to its 7th-gen SKUs suggest that the new chips are between 5-10% faster in the same power envelopes. That's an improvement, certainly, but it's non a very big one. One can't help wondering if Intel could've squeezed some other 4-half dozen% out of the chip merely by opting for solder.

Conclusions

As much as I'd similar to write something exciting about the Core i7-7700K, everything I tin think of qualifies as damning with faint praise. It'due south a solid CPU cadre with some small-scale clock speed improvements, a few new media engine capabilities, and a slightly improved ability consumption bend. If yous're really wanting to build a 4K-capable HTPC with the power to stream 4K content via Netflix, 7th Generation Core chips are definitely the manner to go, and we're downright curious virtually the upcoming Core i3-7350K.

But the hard truth is, Intel'due south "Optimization" footstep doesn't seem to have delivered all that much in the way of concrete benefits. Best-case, Kaby Lake is virtually ten% faster than Skylake in a modestly improved ability envelope. Considering that Skylake launched 18 months ago now, that'southward not much comeback to deliver given how much fourth dimension has passed. And Intel, which has a long history of launching its less-impressive chips on weird dates and times (the original Socket 478 iteration of Prescott launched on Super Bowl Sunday, 2004) undoubtedly knows information technology. Launching a scrap this early on in the year ways that journalists who might have enjoyed spending time with family unit and friends had to work overtime to go the review done, given that CES kicks off on January v.

Last week, a rumor spread that Intel was working on a new x86 architecture. I take no inside information on whether this is truthful, but Intel's CPU performance improvements take been limited to small yr-on-year gains since Sandy Bridge launched in 2022. Much of this is due to physics being a not bad deal less cooperative, and if you compare Intel's operation in the 15W – 35W infinite the company has delivered much larger gains. That'southward not much condolement to desktop die-hards who remember when you could count on a new CPU delivering 2x the performance of your final CPU within 24-36 months, and information technology wouldn't surprise me at this point if Intel was working on a new clean-sheet design.

The Z270 chipset is solid, the Asus Strix Z270E Gaming is a great motherboard, GSkill'southward DDR4-3200 worked flawlessly with every motherboard nosotros tested, Optane may deliver some game-changing performance in the future, and if you need a new CPU after holding off on upgrading for several years, there's no reason non to upgrade to the Core i7-7700K. That is, of class, unless yous'd like to see what AMD is going to evangelize with Ryzen this quarter. Given the cost of buying new RAM, new motherboards, and a new CPU, there'southward a skilful argument to be made for waiting and seeing a picayune longer.

Now read: What is Moore's Law?