Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7700K, i7-7700, i5-7600K, i5-7600 Review

[tripleX]

There will be no kaby drivers for Windows 7 on z270. Intel and Microsoft have both said they will not support Kaby with anything other than Windows 10, as reported widely. Zen is the same, only windows 10.

 

[BobKatopolis]

No x265 benchmarks?

 

[none12345]

/yawn how boring. I mean, ok nothing wrong with relasing a refresh. But, dont pretend its new, when its not. Just slot them into the 6xxx numbering and be done with it.

 

[none12345]

Heh i actually fell asleep reading this. And im standing up at this terminal at work.

Not tom's fault, this is just the most boring cpu release i can remember, going back to the 90s.

 

[Chester Rico]

Excellent review, but yeah. Bring on Ryzen!

 

[anbello262]

I actually think this is quite an improvement. It is certainly a lot more than broadwell was, at least. Reaching from 200 to 400 extra MHz in overclockability is quite something.

 

[cub_fanatic]

Saw that CNET used your benchmark graphic of After Effects. So, the bottom line is there is still no reason to upgrade if you are a gamer and have something like a Sandy Bridge i5 or newer. I bet on most of these benchmark charts, you can go all the way down to a i5-2500 and i7-2600 and they would still not be that far off from the Kaby Lake chip all the way up top. Moore's Law really has smashed into a roadblock. It looks like for gamers and regular consumer-level users, almost anything that is a quad core i5 or i7 with 3 GHz or higher will be fine for several more years. Unless they decide to get rid of PCIe and use some new slot to purposefully make all of our current motherboards incompatible with new GPUs (don't think they aren't thinking about some evil s*** like that), I don't see desktop CPU sales getting better anytime soon. That, or if they figure out a way to mass produce CPUs using an element other than silicon to keep Moore's going past 10nm or whatever the limit is where photo-lithography on silicon becomes really tough.

 

[cub_fanatic]

I was expecting to see a definitive, albeit small efficiency improvement over Sky lake.
That's what I read into the 14nm+ label they're using. Atleast with a "14nm+" process you'd think they should've ironed out alot of the production process variability.
I can only conclude that the production process variations of the 14nm+ is greater that the improvement of "going from 14nm to 14nm+".

Is the 14nm+ just a marketing gimmick?

Looks like it just gave them the ability to slightly raise the clock speeds. It might have also given them better yields but all that means is more money in their pockets. MSRP is still $340 for the 7700k which is the same MSRP as the 6700k, 4790k, 4770k and $7 more than the 3770k's. Funny because more chips on the same size silicon wafer is supposed to be cheaper and is supposed to be a perk of a die shrink. But, not the case for the consumer.

Here is a copy paste from PC Perspective on what Intel has said about 14nm+:

Dubbing this new revision of the process as “14nm+”, Intel tells me that they have improved the fin profile for the 3D transistors as well as channel strain while more tightly integrating the design process with manufacturing. The result is a 12% increase in process performance; that is a sizeable gain in a fairly tight time frame even for Intel.

That process improvement directly results in higher clock speeds for Kaby Lake when compared to Skylake when running at the same target TDPs. In general, we are looking at 300-400 MHz higher peak clock speeds in Turbo Boost situations when compared to similar TDP products in the 6th generation. Sustained clocks will very likely remain voltage / thermally limited but the ability spike up to higher clocks for even short bursts can improve performance and responsiveness of Kaby Lake when compared to Skylake.

Along with higher fixed clock speeds for Kaby Lake processors, tweaks to Speed Shift will allow these processors to get to peak clock speeds more quickly than previous designs. I extensively tested Speed Shift when the feature was first enabled in Windows 10 and found that the improvement in user experience was striking. Though the move from Skylake to Kaby Lake won’t be as big of a change, Intel was able to improve the behavior.

The graphics architecture and EU (execution unit) layout remains the same from Skylake, but Intel was able to integrate a new video decode unit to improve power efficiency. That new engine can work in parallel with the EUs to improve performance throughput as well, but obviously at the expensive of some power efficiency.

 

[Martell1977]

I'm not surprised at the lack or any real performance improvement. Considering that this is a stop gap measure they tossed in there to buy themselves time until CannonLake is ready. Development of these CPU's is a long process and just tossing in another "generation" like this didn't give them much time to tweak anything.

I have a feeling that the "Core" architecture is getting to a point where it is as optimized as possible and all that is really left is seeing how small they can adapt it to. Time for a new architecture revolution like it was between Pentium D and Core 2.

It will be interesting to see what AMD comes up with, Intel didn't widen the gap...at all.

 

[cmi86]

Looks like intel is planning to get stomped on the low end by 4 core ryzen chips. Why else make an unlocked i3 for the first time in company history?? Probably the same reason they are boosting clocks as much as they possibly can on their "new" cabbage lake cpu's.. They know what is coming and they seem to be bracing themselves.

 

[Jo3yization]

Funny they went with a z97 board and it's limited ram speed instead of a 100 series. Thats a pretty huge ram speed difference, & believe it or not, plays a part in game performance.

Seems like they are trying to obscure results even if by the tiniest amount. DDR3L 1866 vs 3400. -.- Does that sound fair?

6700k intel spec is DDR4-1866/2133, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V - http://intel.ly/2izMmSz
7700k intel spec is DDR4-2133/2400, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V - http://intel.ly/2hOdDiI

So why not have the 6700k on a test setup with at least 2133mhz but instead throw it on older z97 /w 1866, and then throw 3400mhz OC'd memory on the kaby lake test setup?? To obscure results?

So are we actually seeing improved gaming performance with the 7700k or simply the difference in ram speed between the test setups?? https://youtu.be/zSE3Q_1a_Lc Watch dogs 2 benefits from faster ram in a similar way Battlefield 1 benefits from faster ram. http://bit.ly/2gkfgVT

It's rather obvious when review sites arent portraying a fair comparison, Techpowerup did a similar trick here: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7-7700K_vs_6700K_Game_Performance/ by using percentages instead of raw results to try and show favor towards the 7700k.

 

[Jo3yization]

Funny they went with a z97 board and it's limited ram speed instead of a 100 series. Thats a pretty huge ram speed difference, & believe it or not, plays a part in game performance.

Seems like they are trying to obscure results even if by the tiniest amount. DDR3L 1866 vs 3400. -.- Does that sound fair?

6700k intel spec is DDR4-1866/2133, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V - http://intel.ly/2izMmSz
7700k intel spec is DDR4-2133/2400, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V - http://intel.ly/2hOdDiI

So why not have the 6700k on a test setup with at least 2133mhz but instead throw it on older z97 /w 1866, and then throw 3400mhz OC'd memory on the kaby lake test setup?? To obscure results?

So are we actually seeing improved gaming performance with the 7700k or simply the difference in ram speed between the test setups?? https://youtu.be/zSE3Q_1a_Lc Watch dogs 2 benefits from faster ram in a similar way Battlefield 1 benefits from faster ram. http://bit.ly/2gkfgVT

It's rather obvious when review sites arent portraying a fair comparison, Techpowerup did a similar trick here: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7-7700K_vs_6700K_Game_Performance/ by using percentages instead of raw results to try and show favor towards the 7700k.

 

[DrinkTray]

If you're on a budget or don't need absolute max performance, and are still rocking an overclocked 2600k @ 4.5+, you still have a viable CPU (6 years old and how many generations removed?). Wait for the real Intel jump in tech - whenever that is.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Looks like it just gave them the ability to slightly raise the clock speeds. It might have also given them better yields but all that means is more money in their pockets. MSRP is still $340 for the 7700k which is the same MSRP as the 6700k, 4790k, 4770k and $7 more than the 3770k's. Funny because more chips on the same size silicon wafer is supposed to be cheaper and is supposed to be a perk of a die shrink. But, not the case for the consumer.

Yeah, but you're forgetting about inflation. A 6700K for $340 today is effectively cheaper than a 3770k was for $333 in 2012.

 

[Martell1977]

If you're on a budget or don't need absolute max performance, and are still rocking an overclocked 2600k @ 4.5+, you still have a viable CPU (6 years old and how many generations removed?). Wait for the real Intel jump in tech - whenever that is.

Even that's more than enough. My i7-950 @ stock is plenty to run Forza Horizon 3 on high settings with no stuttering or issues at all. Doom and Fallout 4 also have no issues.

I think a more accurate statement would be, from First Gen Core i5 or i7, over 3ghz, and things are still pretty good.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Also, I have to say the the i3-7350k seems like a kinda awful buy. Considering cost of CPU + cooler + Z mobo it'll probably be close to double the price of an i3-7100 (for maybe 20-25% increased performance), and for that price you could just get an i5-7600.

 

[FormatC]

Funny they went with a z97 board and it's limited ram speed instead of a 100 series. Thats a pretty huge ram speed difference, & believe it or not, plays a part in game performance.

Seems like they are trying to obscure results even if by the tiniest amount. DDR3L 1866 vs 3400. -.- Does that sound fair?

6700k intel spec is DDR4-1866/2133, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V - http://intel.ly/2izMmSz
7700k intel spec is DDR4-2133/2400, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V - http://intel.ly/2hOdDiI

So why not have the 6700k on a test setup with at least 2133mhz but instead throw it on older z97 /w 1866, and then throw 3400mhz OC'd memory on the kaby lake test setup?? To obscure results?

So are we actually seeing improved gaming performance with the 7700k or simply the difference in ram speed between the test setups?? https://youtu.be/zSE3Q_1a_Lc Watch dogs 2 benefits from faster ram in a similar way Battlefield 1 benefits from faster ram. http://bit.ly/2gkfgVT

It's rather obvious when review sites arent portraying a fair comparison, Techpowerup did a similar trick here: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7-7700K_vs_6700K_Game_Performance/ by using percentages instead of raw results to try and show favor towards the 7700k.

Both, the 7700K AND the 6700K were tested on the SAME Z270 mainboard with the SAME memory (DDR4 3400). Only the older Haswell refresh was tested on a Z97A mainboard. The 1866 DDR3L that I used, is faster than the 2133 OC memory from Corsair (better timings for the 1866). But the difference is really marginal.

On page Two I can read:

We used MSI's Gaming M7 motherboard as our test platform for the seventh-gen Kaby Lake and sixth-gen Skylake processors. We used MSI's Z97 Gaming 7 motherboard for the Haswell-refresh CPU, and the MSI 970 Gaming AM3+ for our AMD comparison.

You reallly sure, that you read our review?

 

[cub_fanatic]

Looks like it just gave them the ability to slightly raise the clock speeds. It might have also given them better yields but all that means is more money in their pockets. MSRP is still $340 for the 7700k which is the same MSRP as the 6700k, 4790k, 4770k and $7 more than the 3770k's. Funny because more chips on the same size silicon wafer is supposed to be cheaper and is supposed to be a perk of a die shrink. But, not the case for the consumer.

Yeah, but you're forgetting about inflation. A 6700K for $340 today is effectively cheaper than a 3770k was for $333 in 2012.

Still, if you plug those numbers into an inflation calculator, $340 in 2016 has the same buying power as $323 in 2012. So the MSRP is lower by a whole ten bucks. That is still the same price range. They can fit 35% more chips on the same wafer with 14nm than they could with 22nm in theory. Let's be conservative and say 25% more. 25% more chips with the same amount of silicon but we are only getting a 3% discount when factoring in inflation? They could do better than that unless the R&D for these architectures was insane, the yields have been plummeting or the cost to purify silicon has skyrocketed in the last 4 years. If those costs have stayed relatively constant factoring in inflation and yields aren't much worse than they were on 22nm, then they are just pocketing the majority of the savings. Then again, they could have slowed production due to lower demand. Desktop sales have been taking a beating every year since the ipad came out. That would justify their pricing.

 

[tanjo]

Pentium G3258 ($75) to i3-7350K ($168)
How would you even recommend that? Add another $24 and get the i5-7500 instead and overclock bclk on capable mobos.

 

[rantoc]

Intels IPC have been standing pretty much still since 2011 *yawn* Hope AMD will make a strong comeback with Ryzen and kick Intel in the nuts like it did back when the Athlon was introduced - That forced Intel into bumping up performance again rather than what it dis/does now... milk the desktop with little money spent on the parts and in r&d.

 

[sarinaide]

This is a bit of a door for AMD to slide on through. SR7 with a very low baseclock on BETA testing boards not designed to support AMD turbo had the unoptimised Ryzen SR7 performance around the full range of mid clocked i5 Skylakes, you can add Haswells as there is little performance differance from a 4590 to 6600 clock for clock in gaming terms. Given that no games utilize the SR7 or i7 6900K perforamance per Canard PC's leak the performance of the 6900K was just under 10% and that is down to clock speed. A base clock of 3.5Ghz will push the SR7 into the same performance as the 6900K for similar unoptimized CPU usage.

The SR2 is going to be the killer though, CB15 score around 750 on base clocks is in the same performance metric as the 4770/4790 and 6700 but it is believed to be sub 200 which just really hurts intel across the board, the i3/i5's will become redundant.

Very exciting times, maybe Intel needs the motivation again. They will get the shock soon.

 

[bramahon]

"and Kaby Lake doesn't disappoint."

- A fine example of why you need to read things in context!!

 

[Badelhas]

Nice review.
Intel is not even trying. It´s sad, but 6 generations later my Intel SandyBridge i5 2500K overclocked to 4.4Ghz (that´s a 33% increase from the 3.3Ghz stock speed!) is still holding fine and I find no reason whatsoever to upgrade from it. Like I said, it´s just sad.

 

[synphul]

People seem surprised that there's not much difference with kaby. It was never intended to be a 'skylake' or 'haswell'. Was there a rumor that I missed where it was supposed to be some big huge departure like an entirely new architecture?

No there's not much difference between skylake and kaby. Then again there wasn't a huge difference from haswell refresh to broadwell or from haswell to haswell refresh/devil's canyon. There wasn't a huge leap from sandy to ivy either. There seems to be all this disappointment or surprise and yet for years now there's been little reason to upgrade from one generation directly to the next. That shouldn't be shocking.

Maybe there are more people than I realize upgrading every single generation. Looking back to even the p3 and p4 days, there was hardly any difference in a task like mpeg encoding or even gaming (ut) between the coppermine p3 and willamette p4. Not every release has had a major impact even going back to the late 90's or early 2000's, nearly 2 decades ago back when significant performance bumps were easier to come by (not limited to nearly reaching the threshold of the process size).

 

[Rokeugon]

not much difference between kaby and skylake. skylake il stick too till cannonlake comes about. for those amd airheads come on it runs hot at stock settings also intel are not bothered about amd and what they have to offer as intel rises up more people using intel than amd imo

as a intel fan and have been for many years now.. no just no!

intel will care soon enough because they will be losing out of a good chunk of their customers. if AMD does well with ryzen launch and continues to improve in that market for general enthusiasts and workstation users. then you can bet your arse that we will see a major shift in what people use.

intel has the most used CPU's the now cause AMD have been out of it for such a long time.

Ryzen needs to happen for intel to be competitive again and get back into the right mindset.