Monday, May 2nd 2016
Intel Core i7-7700K "Kaby Lake" Processor Detailed
It looks like Intel's 7th generation performance desktop processor, the Core i7-7700K, will be a quad-core part, like the seven generations before it. Leaked SiSoft SANDRA benchmark leaderboards reveal interesting details about the chip. To begin with, this quad-core part will feature HyperThreading enabling 8 logical CPUs for the OS to deal with. It will be clocked at 3.60 GHz, with a TurboBoost frequency of 4.20 GHz. Compare this, to the 4.00 GHz nominal and 4.20 GHz TurboBoost clocks of the current-generation i7-6700K. Bear in mind that this is a pre-release engineering-sample, and may not be accurate for the production chips.
The IMC of the i7-7700K will be clocked at 4.00 GHz, and its integrated graphics core will feature 24 execution units, much like "Skylake-D." The cache setup is unchanged, too, with 256 KB per-core L2, and 8 MB shared L3 caches. The "Kaby Lake" silicon will be built on Intel's 14 nm node, and is rumored to be slightly more energy-efficient than "Skylake." It will be built in the LGA1151 package, and will be compatible with current Intel 100-series and future 200-series chipset motherboard. "Kaby Lake" is the third mainline CPU architecture by Intel on the 14 nm node (after "Broadwell" and "Skylake"). The first 7th generation Core processors could launch later this year.
Source:
WCCFTech
The IMC of the i7-7700K will be clocked at 4.00 GHz, and its integrated graphics core will feature 24 execution units, much like "Skylake-D." The cache setup is unchanged, too, with 256 KB per-core L2, and 8 MB shared L3 caches. The "Kaby Lake" silicon will be built on Intel's 14 nm node, and is rumored to be slightly more energy-efficient than "Skylake." It will be built in the LGA1151 package, and will be compatible with current Intel 100-series and future 200-series chipset motherboard. "Kaby Lake" is the third mainline CPU architecture by Intel on the 14 nm node (after "Broadwell" and "Skylake"). The first 7th generation Core processors could launch later this year.
153 Comments on Intel Core i7-7700K "Kaby Lake" Processor Detailed
Funny xD
High end chip? correct. Strongest IPC? correct.
If the mob is angry at intel for making baby steps, it should be angry at its competition for making ant steps.
Boy, AMD Zen better be something really serious, or the CPU market stagnation will never end.
Even Skylake was a total disapointment. I thought it would feature EDRAM on all processors for general compute like initial rumors suggested, but it turned out to be another crappy HT quad core with nothing really new to offer. And it costs the same as a lot more powerful 5820K. Which is a HT hexacore capable of running at same clocks as 6700K. Only thing that sets them apart is board cost, but if you want a good one for 6700K, you'll also spend around 300€ very quickly.
They actually are, but the problem is that the applications you run are not taking advantage of the progress made.
1. We can't keep saying the vast majority of games are GPU bound, then go on to complain about not being able to see CPU advances in those very games. Witcher 3 or GTA V @ 3840x2160 with 8xAA is a GPU bound scenario. There's no CPU that could change that.
2. We can't keep complaining that games are developed primarily for consoles, or are ports which have weaker host CPUs, but expect INTEL to work magic in those very same games. Those games are simply not designed to take advantage of CPUs more powerful than their original target hardware.
3. Software has always and will always drive hardware progress. If there is no killer application that necessitates the need for faster processors, then we will simply not see the progress we saw before in many generations gone by. The days of office applications like spreadsheet calculations driving development are gone. Games took over and even that has moved to the domain of the GPU.
4. AVX has been around for several generations of CPUs and can add massive performance for applications that take advantage of those instructions. To date, not a simple game uses them. That is a silicon investment INTEL made and the tools to exploit it are there and freely available. Yet developers have not done so.
You can't blame INTEL for not releasing a CPU that will add 20fps to your game, when your game is GPU limited. Doesn't matter how much improvement is made in IPC and clock speed, the bottleneck isn't there and to expect INTEL to somehow work magic around this is just puzzling.
@ShockG
You talk exactly like a PR manager from Intel. :)
Before I bought my 3770K I was using a Core 2 Quad Q9650. Afterwards, my FPS in games almost doubled, and that is not an exaggeration.
However since 2600K CPUs, all the performance is almost identical and the same for new processors, so basically in more than 5 years, nothing happened performance wise. Are you going to PR me again? :)
Yes, there was a huge jump when core i7 chips arrived but since then, there has not been much to take advantage of them.
Contrast with AMD's GCN architecture that has allowed their products to shine so far in DX12. That's a hardware implementation showing excellent software improvements.
If Intel keep making top performing chips with lower and lower power draw, then they're still achieving good progress.
Personally I was expecting after 5 years of nothing to have 6 or 8 Cores as mainstream, 24 or more PCI-Ex 3.0 lines on the CPU,etc,etc. Instead.... pfff
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.
From what I've heard, these are supposed to be massive overclockers, unlike previous generations, which is at least something.
That said, I'd also like to see more PCIe lanes as someone pointed out here, especially as we're now getting more and more storage interfaces that requires four PCIe lanes per device. Doing this via the chipset is imho not the best way, since the chipset still only has a x4 PCIe interface towards the CPU, admittedly PCIe 3.0 by now, but it needs to have a wider bus to be able to cope with future technologies. On top of that, 32 lanes for graphics cards ought to be the standard by now, but alas, unless you're willing to spend stupid money, this isn't the case.
Intel clearly doesn't care about "our" opinions, as we're a minority of its customers. For whatever reason it seems like Intel is against adding more PCIe lanes and CPU cores for this market segment.