Intel Core i7-7700K "Kaby Lake" Processor Detailed

[PP Mguire]

There hasn't been much progress on the CPU since Sandy Bridge back in 2011. You can move to the HEDT segment and have more cores at lower frequency or stay in the enthusiast/mainstream segment. The real changes since SB have been on the chipset side. SB has no USB 3, only 2 bugged SATA 6Gb/s ports, no M.2, no U.2, and the memory controller is poorly tuned and has much lower bandwidth.

Having upgraded from an i7-2600K / Z68 through each series to my current i7-6700K / Z170, I can safely say the i7-2600K / Z68 combo was the most stable and highest quality. It was a GREAT combo and the best Intel has done since the first i7-9xx series with X58. It however lacks many features i actively use on the Skylake build such as M.2, USB 3, 6 SATA ports of which I use 4, and USB BIOS Flashback (ASUS). It is all about feature assessment, needs, and balance. No right answer here.

I have USB3 (even 3.1 Gen 2), 4 SATA 3 ports (only use 1), and M.2 Course I've been on this platform for uh 4 years almost. (damn)

 

[Condelio]

Started building my skylake itx build in november...life happened during this months.. Only thing left is a 6700k cpu... Didn't know if buy it or wait for kaby... and if my skylake z170 mobo would work with a 7700k.. Only thing nice with this small advancements is that your investment lasts a little longer

 

[ShockG]

We have an odd relationship with Sandy-Bridge.
Sure it was wonderful to overclock, but remember we were stuck with DDR3 2133 and a much poorer platform as well. That virtually all CPUs could do 5GHz 24/7 doesn't mean much when a 6700K @ 4.0GHz is faster and requires less power, while offering more.
XTU on Sandy Bridge @ 5.8GHz = 1,206 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/3201843_minicoopers_xtu_core_i7_2600k_1206_marks
XTU on Skylake @ 4GHz = 1,402 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/3196014_skvortsoff_xtu_core_i7_6700k_1402_marks

But for some reason, we keep saying there's not been any improvement -_-
Cinebench R15 on Sandy Bridge @ 5.95GHz = 1,059 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/2816223_leeghoofd_cinebench___r15_core_i7_2600k_1059_cb
Cinebench R15 on Skylake @ 4.8GHz = 1,060 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/3190771_papusan_cinebench___r15_core_i7_6700k_1060_cb

Cinebench doesn't even rely on AVX instructions like XTU at all. At almost 1.2GHz slower, Skylake gives a higher result.

So yeah, want to point fingers at anyone for the lack of progress. Don't blame INTEL as they have genuinely been doing the work. turn to the devs, which up to today are still largely incapable of taking advantage of more than 4 threads. (Core i3 6320 @ 4.6GHz regularly matched 6600K @ 4~4.4GHz)

 

[Prima.Vera]

@Grings
Lol. I was talking about myself there. Im on a 3770k, but my mobo is on the verge of colapsing. So I need to change evrything now. CPU, RAM, Mobo... And this pos new CPU doesn't look like it brings something new to the table from the last gen...might as well go for the 6 core old gen one.

 

[ssdpro]

I have USB3 (even 3.1 Gen 2), 4 SATA 3 ports (only use 1), and M.2 Course I've been on this platform for uh 4 years almost. (damn)

Setting aside we aren't talking about HEDT boards and my comparison was SB to following platforms, anything listed can only be on a X79 using a crippled 3rd party add on controller. I'm talking about native fully functional features boyz.

 

[PP Mguire]

We have an odd relationship with Sandy-Bridge.
Sure it was wonderful to overclock, but remember we were stuck with DDR3 2133 and a much poorer platform as well. That virtually all CPUs could do 5GHz 24/7 doesn't mean much when a 6700K @ 4.0GHz is faster and requires less power, while offering more.
XTU on Sandy Bridge @ 5.8GHz = 1,206 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/3201843_minicoopers_xtu_core_i7_2600k_1206_marks
XTU on Skylake @ 4GHz = 1,402 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/3196014_skvortsoff_xtu_core_i7_6700k_1402_marks

But for some reason, we keep saying there's not been any improvement -_-
Cinebench R15 on Sandy Bridge @ 5.95GHz = 1,059 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/2816223_leeghoofd_cinebench___r15_core_i7_2600k_1059_cb
Cinebench R15 on Skylake @ 4.8GHz = 1,060 points - http://hwbot.org/submission/3190771_papusan_cinebench___r15_core_i7_6700k_1060_cb

Cinebench doesn't even rely on AVX instructions like XTU at all. At almost 1.2GHz slower, Skylake gives a higher result.

So yeah, want to point fingers at anyone for the lack of progress. Don't blame INTEL as they have genuinely been doing the work. turn to the devs, which up to today are still largely incapable of taking advantage of more than 4 threads. (Core i3 6320 @ 4.6GHz regularly matched 6600K @ 4~4.4GHz)

And yet despite what synthetics show, my 3960x performs relatively the same as my friend's 5930k similarly clocked and my best friends 5960x @ 4.2 loses to my 4.5GHz clocked 3960x at some real world tasks. Synthetics can be used to show the differences in raw brute power BUT as you've said several times developers in all areas aren't utilizing this power so to us, the end user/consumer, it doesn't make much of a difference. I think the point you're missing here is the simple fact that without any real world differences nobody cares what Intel releases. Software will always be behind hardware and when these modern CPUs actually show a bottleneck there will be something new and shiny that's several gens newer.

Honestly, I quite like a release every year. It means newer technology that's platform dependent gets adopted faster. Can't snub my nose at that. Course if I can get an AIC that does the same thing and save myself a few bucks I'd rather do that.

Setting aside we aren't talking about HEDT boards and my comparison was SB to following platforms, anything listed can only be on a X79 using a crippled 3rd party add on controller. I'm talking about native fully functional features boyz.

Funny, my 3.1 Gen 2 card is fully functional, and my PCI-E M.2 performs on par with rated speeds. Crippled? I think not. Then again, a PCI-E 2.0 slot will supply enough bandwidth for 3.1 Gen 1 so anybody running a 2500k or 2600k and a single card would have that capability and still run everything. As an early adopter I can tell you there's no real world benefit to using PCI-E M.2 over SATA currently, NVMe or not. Don't see the issue here.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I'm just going to leave this here:

 

[PP Mguire]

I'm just going to leave this here:

Lookit that, lots more room for more cores....oh wait.

 

[GhostRyder]

Wish we would get a little more love on the basic platform, but seeing as how 4 cores will still do enough for a majority of tasks that is where we are going to stay.

Interesting processor clocks, would like to see this chip in action.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Yeah, we're being robbed and most people don't bat an eye. 8-cores should be mainstream at $300 by now. Instead, price (inflation adjusted) and core count stays the same while cost to produce goes down. Intel is making a killing. Only thing stopping them is ARM devices.

Now to top it off, Moore's Law is collapsing so...Kaby Lake is born. These are not the best of days for tech.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yeah, we're being robbed and most people don't bat an eye. 8-cores should be mainstream at $400 by now.

Speak for yourself buddy I think I might get Zen just for S&G's.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Oh, I know I got robbed but I couldn't wait another 1-2 years for Zen.

 

[PP Mguire]

Oh, I know I got robbed but I couldn't wait another 1-2 years for Zen.

Wouldn't make sense to release boards this year then only release APUs, course it wouldn't be the only dumb thing AMD has done. Guess we'll see. My main rig update will be to Skylake-E so you're not the only one, but I have several uses for more cores too. Will probably last another 4-5 years.

 

[Sasqui]

This is yet another reason for the desktop segment to stagnate. Other than DDR4, the grass sure isn't much greener beyond Haswell.

Give us something big...

 

[GhostRyder]

Yeah, we're being robbed and most people don't bat an eye. 8-cores should be mainstream at $300 by now. Instead, price (inflation adjusted) and core count stays the same while cost to produce goes down. Intel is making a killing. Only thing stopping them is ARM devices.

Now to top it off, Moore's Law is collapsing so...Kaby Lake is born. These are not the best of days for tech.

Oh, I know I got robbed but I couldn't wait another 1-2 years for Zen.

Yea, I was hoping at least to have the i5 now be the 4 core 8 thread processor with the i7 starting at 6 cores 12 threads but were probably not going to see that anytime soon the way things are going. Glad I invested in my processor, but I think it won't be changed out for years to come. Guess I can't complain about being happy with it for years , but would be nice to have major reasons to upgrade on the processor front.

 

[cdawall]

At the end of the day 1151 is mainstream and 2011 is hedt. Intel is making plenty of money keeping those split. If you want 10 cores buy an x99 and wait. Until then enjoy the fact that Intels mainstream quad core offers similar performance to the last gen of hexa cores from Intel and more performance than the 8 module 16 core amd server chips.

 

[trog100]

on the one hand we have gear that lasts a long time on the other hand the poor old gearhead has trouble remaining a gearhead.. win some lose some..

none of this is about performance its all about an excuse to buy new stuff to play with.. he he..

all we have here is little skylake tweaking under a new name and a new "generation" it seems the latest generation is now what its all about.. my poor old devils canyon (bought last summer) will soon be a geriatric three generations behind..

trog

 

[PP Mguire]

on the one hand we have gear that lasts a long time on the other hand the poor old gearhead has trouble remaining a gearhead.. win some lose some..

none of this is about performance its all about an excuse to buy new stuff to play with.. he he..

all we have here is little skylake tweaking under a new name and a new "generation" it seems the latest generation is what its now what its all about.. my poor old devils canyon (bought last summer) will soon be a geriatric three generations behind..

trog

Can't agree more. I'm bored as shit with X79.

 

[EarthDog]

Booooring. And only four cores? That's almost oppresive at this point in time.

If you want cores, use the HEDT platform. This is mainstream.

 

[cdawall]

If you want cores, use the HEDT platform. This is mainstream.

I don't quite understand why people don't get this. Also people need to remember AMD's current mainstream is an A10 APU. So roughly the performance of a 3rd gen pentium dual core, with a cheap r7 graphics card.

 

[Toothless]

Hey guys, dump your Intel rigs, use a FX6300 for two months, and we'll come back to our i7s and drop a brick in our pants like when we first got our chips.

Fake an upgrade.

 

[PP Mguire]

Hey guys, dump your Intel rigs, use a FX6300 for two months, and we'll come back to our i7s and drop a brick in our pants like when we first got our chips.

Fake an upgrade.

When my main rig was down for water upgrades I used my 940BE with only 6GB of DDR2 1066 for about 2 weeks and it really wasn't that bad. The only thing I missed having was my SSD, but only because I was being lazy and didn't want to install crap.

 

[cdawall]

Hey guys, dump your Intel rigs, use a FX6300 for two months, and we'll come back to our i7s and drop a brick in our pants like when we first got our chips.

Fake an upgrade.

I use one at work every single day side by side with a 4770@4ghz. Oddly enough the internet loads just as fast and data transfers just as fast.

 

[Frick]

I don't quite understand why people don't get this. Also people need to remember AMD's current mainstream is an A10 APU. So roughly the performance of a 3rd gen pentium dual core, with a cheap r7 graphics card.

If you want cores, use the HEDT platform. This is mainstream.

Sure I get it. But I disagree with it is all. Quad cores have been at the high end of the mainstream for a decade now, and while there are few reasons for it to move to more cores ... it would still be nice, and we're getting there performance-wise. The next gen from Intel should be (on desktop) like now, but bumped up a step. IE 2C/4T for Celeron/Pentium (maybe apart from the €30 CPU's), 4C/4T for i3's and 4C/8T for i5s and 6C/12T (and maybe even 8C/16T Xeon parts for mainstream) for i7's. But then they'd step on their own toes and their precious market segmentation. I just like the idea to start a build with a Celeron and end up with a sixteen thread monster.

 

[Grings]

They should give the i5 hyperthreading on 2 cores, other than the 6600k (and only because its unlocked) the higher clocked i3's are a better proposition