X299 Ultra-Light: Intel's Kaby Lake-X Core i7-7740X, Core i5-7640X and what to do

We want to precede today's test with a small episode that we experienced at a motherboard manufacturer when it came to Intel's request that kaby Lake-X still have a cheap board with only four memory banks. The Basin Falls X299 chipset The Kaby Lake-X processors sit in an LGA2066 socket (R4), powered by an X299 chipset with 6 watts of power consumption. The 14nm chiset supports an x4 DMI 3.0 connection, which provides a PCIe link between the ... What we noticed during testing We took a little more time to counter some of the anomalies we noticed when benchmarking the new Kaby Lake-X CPUs. To what extent the 3DMark is now really a reliable reference... Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation (DX12) Let's take the bow to the first game, which we have documented in as much detail as always. Purely in terms of computing power, there are no surprises and all CPUs are also fixed in time... Project Cars (DX12) This game demands the CPUs, but you don't actually need more than 4 real cores. Here, only clock counts and thus also the IPC. The Core i7-7740X can be overclocked and not overclocked. In... Introduction During the launch article of AMD's Ryzen 7 CPUs, we had already explained all workstation and HPC benchmarks in great detail and also questioned the background for many results in some cases even down to the last detail. En... Important preliminary remark As with Kaby Lake, Intel has no longer realized the contact between Die and Heatspreader by metallic solder at Kaby Lake-X, but is also available here on cheaper TIM (Thermal Interface material, i.e. neat heater... Cooling with the Chiller crowbar In order to achieve comparable results for the launch article of the Core i7-7900X, we use the Alphacool Ice Age Chiller 2000, as with all articles on AMD's Ryzen, which also has a load-independent, constank... Summary The bottom line is that the performance differences between Kaby Lake and Kaby Lake-X are rather marginal, but we haven't really found the meaning of this whole venture either. While the Vi...

Summary

The bottom line is that the performance differences between Kaby Lake and Kaby Lake-X are rather marginal, but we haven't really found the meaning of this whole venture either. While the four-core Core i7-7740X can drag itself just as squinting lyses over the finish line thanks to SMT and eight threads, as well as the high bar, the Core i5-7640X has no real raison d'etre either in the HEDT segment.

Both CPUs, which were grafted quite easily from the base 1151 to the socket 2066, probably in order to generate a larger product portfolio for the socket 2066, were still recommended representatives in the middle-class segment, which thanks Quick-Sync went to work quite quickly even with suitable tasks and could also make a certain buyer's class happy. But it's not a real upper class, let's say it's not a high-end, which almost makes the point of both CPUs absurd when you think about the cost of the rest of the platform.

Who is really going to buy such a CPU, where the required motherboard is already significantly more expensive and on which then four empty and unusable memory slots smile hungry every day while they dust nonchalantly? Intel's call for slimmed-down motherboards for Kaby Lake-X has hardly been (and is likely to be) heard and followed by motherboard manufacturers. The risk of fragmentation and cannibalization of one's own products with Z270 chipset is too great.

Conclusion

We want to be fair and not completely tear Kaby Lake-X apart, even if it is admittedly quite difficult given the prices, market positioning and ultimately the available performance. The overclocking potential is there, especially since none of the core i7-7700K tested so far was so easy to overclock up to 5.2 GHz. Unheaded, mind you, because the required tensions were significantly lower in today's test than at the launch of Kaby Lake. But it's not something you couldn't do at Kaby Lake if you made an effort.

The fact that the two Kaby Lake-Xs went so well overclocked has little to do with the legend of the disabled graphic appendix and the spreading heat spreader. In addition, such overclocking violence in the border area is always associated with lottery, luck, and chance, and thus nothing that could justify the price of the overall package even in the middle.

And AMD? There you can sit back and watch amused as someone leads around in front of the assembled audience by the nose. While the broad masses want exactly the opposite way and eagerly awaits real six-nuclei for the base 1151, the buyer's layer for such narrow-breasted four-cores in the HEDT range will certainly be so wafer-thin that one can loose through it could see through. If the 2066 pedestal is meant for prosumer (terrible word), then it should remain so. Intel simply can't drive another consumer rail.

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