Intel Kaby Lake: Core i7-7700K, i7-7700, i5-7600K and i5-7600 in review

Intel is currently in the midst of the biggest restructuring in the company's history. In terms of its own growth forecasts, the focus is increasingly shifting toward IoT, cloud, and data centers. At the same time, the CPU... 200 chipsets and Optane Ready support Both the 200 and 100 chipsets support Kaby Lake and Skylake processors. This dual compatibility could create an interesting dilemma for enthusiasts who want to create a Skyl... Processors Core i7-7700K Core i7-7700 Core i7-7600K Core i7-7600 Motherboard and memory As the basis of our test platform, we use both the seventh (Kaby Lake) and the sixth (Skylake) generation of core CPUs MSIs Z... Benchmark selection and practical relevance Of course, you could make it easy and roll out synthetic benchmarks that show exactly one thing in the end: that there is actually nothing to show. In any case, not if the respective equivalent ... OpenGL: Cinebench R15 Before we let the very hard guys out, we insert a little synthetic foot insert in the form of the OpenGL benchmark in the Cinebench package. Takt goes ahead, you don't need more than four cores here. Own... Since we were always asked which graphics card or CPU is best when using Adobe CC & co. more intensively, we can now give an answer at least with regard to the CPU - at least as long as it is on our ... 3D-Peformance with dedicated graphics card Of course, the reader will also want to know how good (or bad) a new CPU is when playing challenging titles. For the next two tests, we use an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 FE, which is about as ... Important preliminary remark We have not known since today that the processors are subject to very large variations in quality during production. This time, however, our test samples are not directly from Intel, but are normal retail CPUs... This CPU does not have an open multiplier compared to the core i7-7700K and also has a significantly lower base clock. In addition, Intel's other values (e.g. Ringbus) deliberately chosen in such a way that even an overclocking over an increase... This CPU, like the Core i7-7700K, has an open multiplier and also has a significantly higher base clock than the non-K models. Of course, this also opens up enough space for your own manual overclocking attempts. If the ex works is... This CPU, like the Core i7-7000, does not have an open multiplier compared to the Core i5-7600K and also has a significantly lower base clock. Also with this CPU, an overclocking overane was increased BCLK by certain factory specifications... Golden Sample or Potato Chip? As already written, we have tested this time with pure retail CPUs - exactly with the material that the normal buyer can expect if he wants to upgrade as an "Early Adaptor" in a timely manner. However, it is... Intel's last generations of Intel's CPU have been characterized by a slow progression in incremental upgrades and have not exactly helped to keep their own products at a distance from those of the...

Intel's recent generations of CPU have been characterized by a slow progression in incremental upgrades, and haven't helped keep your own products at a distance from AMD's from generation to generation.

Instead, it seems more aptly worded that AMD has fallen short of its own beat rhythm. However, the Ryzen CPUs are now on the verge of the official launch – so it is time to resume speculation. We cannot, of course, yet predict what this clash will be like. But when it comes to reviving the desktop market, you're obviously reliant on competitive AMD products.

Intel's announcement that it is moving away from the well-known tick-tock principle has already prepared us for the fact that the differences between processor generations could be even smaller than before – and Kaby Lake meets expectations (or: Fears?).

Intel relies on the same architectural basis as before, so there are no more computing cores, no increase in IPC performance or additional cache – nothing that could make us cheer. By default, the Kaby Lake CPUs perform almost identically to slightly overclocked models of the previous Skylake generation, when they are brought to identical clock frequencies by slight overclocking.

However, Kaby Lake promises overclockers to reach the magic 5 GHz limit. Apart from the slightly higher clock rates (around 200 to 300 MHz) compared to Skylake in general, there is no real reason to switch from an existing Skylake platform to Kaby Lake. If you already have a strong Skylake platform, you better invest in a new graphics card or SSD – because Kaby Lake really only offers an upgrade if you replace an outdated (Sandy Bridge and earlier) and slow PC system with a new platform. Wants.

Intel's drilled media capabilities are a nice touch for mainstream desktop users and notebooks, and power capture and power. the cpu utilization is sometimes significantly lower when the integrated graphics unit is set. All of this does not benefit owners of high-performance systems with bold graphics cards, as they will probably never use the economical integrated graphics solution – and with its high-end CPUs, Intel addresses exactly these users in the PC sector; no Office PC needs a processor that costs 350 euros or more.

As long as 4K content continues to be sparsely offered, the touted possibilities for streaming correspondingly high-resolution material are also interesting for marginal groups at best.

The new 200-series motherboard chipsets offer more HSIO lanes than the 100 series, giving motherboard manufacturers more leeway. But these possibilities are at least partially cancelled by a very restrictive DMI 3.0 link.

As a further advantage of the new PCH, Intel is using compatibility with 3D XPoint memory, which is available at Intel under the "Optane" label. Although this future memory on paper sounds very promising, it is not even ready for the market at present. Currently, Intel is also promoting it primarily as a cache for mechanical hard drives, which in turn could indicate questionable performance values compared to existing Performance class SSDs.

However, the real strength of 3D XPoint is likely to be in the field of application as a favorable addition to the DRAM and this could indeed mean a small revolution. However, we will probably have to wait until at least the next generation for this feature.

The Core i7-7700K is a powerful processor, but it also eats a considerable amount of waste heat. This can lead to it quickly reaching its thermal limit in the event of aggressive overclocking: powerful cooling is then a must. The smaller Core i5-7600K seems to be the more balanced choice and offers more (thermal) leeway, but it lacks hyper-threading and it brings the lower clock frequency from the house. The Core i5-7600, on the other hand, offers a very balanced balance of performance and efficiency; However, the lack of an open multiplier places tough limits on overclocking by limiting it to BCLK adjustments.

An AVX offset mode is a nice entry, but Intel would have done better to donate the Kaby Lake CPUs Turbo Boost 3.0. The Core i3-7350K seems to be a more than tempting alternative to the Pentium G3258, but we will not make such a recommendation until we have done our own tests and measurements.

In terms of price, Kaby Lake is fortunately oriented towards the previous generation, because without real competition, Intel is free to design the prices at its own discretion. If you are currently planning a new Desktop system based on Kaby Lake, you should be sure to purchase a powerful water cooling system and – if you don't already have it – also a Windows 10 license.

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