Intel i7 7700K stagnate, but getting 5Ghz............

[revin]

So is this really it? ARS has a pretty wild comment about: The Intel Core i7-7700K is what happens when a chip company stops trying.
Supposedly Kaby Lake desktop is effectively Sandy Bridge polished to within an inch of its life, a once-groundbreaking CPU architecture hacked, and tweaked, and mangled into ever-smaller manufacturing processes and power envelopes.
Asus claims it can push the i7-7700K to 5GHz with a reasonable (read: no extravagant water cooling required) setup and that most decent unlocked Core i7 and Core i5 Kaby Lake chips will hit 5GHz between a reasonable 1.29-1.35 volts.
Did anyone really think Intel was at a dead end with these CPU's?
We must have the TPU review to see just what is really going on here.
Source

 

[RejZoR]

But at the end of the day, 7700K is still just a quad core we had for like 6+ years now? Totally uninspiring piece of silicon even if it hits 5GHz. People have CPU's with more cores that run at slightly lower clocks...

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

They're reaching the limit of the laws of physics and whats possible. They know that eventually they just won't be able to go any faster.

Releasing 100's of processors with only tiny increments in performance will net them more money in the long-run because people will buy the latest edition each time.

Sell 50 processors over 50 years and you net a lot more money than only selling 20 processor upgrades over 50 years. (which people will buy because they always want that extra 10%). In this example the 20th processor is equally as powerful as the 50th after the 50 years!

The consumer is partly to blame for giving in.

I just heard someone sold their 6700k for a 7700k. For what. A 10% increase?

Imagine their 6700k was a great over-clocker and their 7700k didn't overclock for shit; what would the increase be then.. 2%? lol

I don't even have an intel processor, I have an AMD... and I can see how silly this is.

Anyway, roll on ZEN

 

[Tomgang]

And this is also why i year after year ending up putting my money back in my wallet.

Its the same shit every year the last six or so years. Close to no performance gain. I Mean you really need to have a pretty old cpu before you will get a major performance boost out of a new cpu when we talking quad vs. Quad cpu. Even 10 years after the release of Intel's first generation of quad core like the core 2 quad q6600. Quad core is stil considered hign end atleast when we talking i7.

This just shows how slow the teknologi has come the pasta fem years.

The two first gen core i cpu gave a decent speed boost whit the i7 800 and 900 series and 2000 series. After that speed gain where low and only a very fem % performance boost.

After 8 years with an i7 920 @ 4 Ghz+ cpu i would never had exspected i would had keept the same cpu for 8 fucking years back when. Udgrading it i would after so many years be decent performance boost but is also first after 7-8 years. Back in the single core days you cut upgrade cpu every 2-3 years if you wanted it performe decent in all games. Today how ever a 6 year old i7 cpu that is hign overclocked can still performe and run games to the point where most people would still be satisfied.

Cpu speed gain has Truly be come slow over the past years or so.

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

aye, exactly why I've held onto my FX-8350 (overclocked to 4.8GHZ) for so long.

It serves my needs. And despite what people say even at 4k (and especially at 2560 x 1440) it is more than capable in games. Maybe I only have 35-40FPS at 4k and 75--100FPS at 1440 but that's all I have needed.

And overclocking a 32nm CPU is fun.

People make comments like "what are you doing with a 1080 GPU with that CPU" and laugh at me.

But the FX-8350 owners club is actually still going strong; you'd be so surprised how active it still is over there. New updates every day. More active than the 1080 owners club. (and that technology isn't even a year old).

But for a 40% increase in ZEN (and with all the new features like how it rewards premium cooling) e.t.c you can see they have really tried.

It would almost be an insult not to upgrade to ZEN.

A very exciting time for AMD owners is upon us.

Sorry we can't say that for intel.

Think about that; everyone who comments about any benchmarks I post up saying things like "yeah on an FX CPU blah blah"....

All I say is can't wait for ZEN! i76900k performance without getting raped for it. (roomer is half the price)!

 

[Kursah]

We must have the TPU review to see just what is really going on here.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i7-7700K_vs_6700K_Game_Performance/



Not 5GHz, but 4.9 is pretty close for TPU results...though this is just the comparison. Good enough for this thread until they release the full-on review.

@RejZoR hit the nail on the head with his comment, so did ARS. It's pretty much the same thing we've seen for years, with a few improvements and tweaks throughout. I do gotta say making the jump from my OC-d i5-760 to the 4770K was great. Swapping for a 4790K due to a deployment situation for a client, I couldn't be happier. This chip hits 4.8GHz on air, before delidding. So far I see no need to upgrade, I'm not using SSD's beyond SATA interfaces and my 980Ti runs excellent performance-wise. I just picked up some DDR3 2400, and am pushing my current 1866 to 2200 with great results. Not quite DDR4 performance, but for my needs its all good.

I really hope Zen does bring on some challenge, something we've yet to see, hopefully a surprise. If it were Athlon vs Pentium 4 again, I'd be very happy to welcome the competition.

Intel really has no need in the consumer market, or really any market, to truly improve speed. Why pull harder when you're already in the lead? They clearly see that and know they have the time to screw around with other things, which I imagine are more SoC/portable markets, or simple optimizations and fab testing.

But for those that just want the newest and fastest, and even a K-series though don't OC, this might be an option I suppose...or if they NEED the iGPU to decode 4K video ...I dunno I'm reaching for straws. I'm still pretty bummed at the separated HEDT platform, sure I see the reasoning behind it...but in the same breath...I'm curious how long the mainstream market will need to wait for a truly affordable, brand new, 6-8 core CPU from Intel that goes in a mainstream chipset instead of the HEDT market niche.

Well good thing we're still seeing gains in the GPU market from NV and AMD! And hopefully AMD will launch a worthy challenge that catches Intel off guard... we can truly hope for the sake of competition and performance that happens...

 

[erocker]

7700K is designed to replace the previous CPU to please investors. That's about it as far as I can see and without any competition at all, that's all that needs to be done.

 

[phanbuey]

yep... super disappointing... I hope zen stomps it into the dirt.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I certainly wouldn't be on here boasting about a 600mhz oc on air like that's a good thing bro, they're clearly already ringing its neck to get all they can, Why becauses it's the only way they were getting 10% this year.

 

[revin]

Indeed it seam's like a great opportunity is open for AMD now and hopefully it will be a home run for them !
Meanwhile I'm still pretty satisfied with the ole 2600K, even if it's 5 Gen's old. I don't care to have every ounce of benchmark epeen at this late stage of life
Though I think I did say after getting it up and running with great clock's few years ago "it'll probably due me for most of the rest of my life" WTH that many years go by already !

to please investors

Pity that Intel tried riding their coat tails with this. They should know that the Intel consumers won't be happy, and could bite them in the ass

 

[Recon-UK]

Sorry what was that? can't hear you over my 1.8ghz overclock on my XEON.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Exactly.

 

[RejZoR]

The thing is, 7700K is a boring CPU even if you still have an aging Core i7 920 from what, 6-7 years ago now? I was at that same point of decision. I had Core i7 920 running at 4GHz. I was deciding for newly released 6700K like a year ago and I just couldn't see a point. It was the same quad core with same number of HT threads, it was clocked tiny bit higher and it had slightly better IPC. Now, imagine how someone coming with more recent mainstream Haswells or Ivy Bridges would feel. Even less excited. You really still have to own like a dual core or maybe even Q6600 to be really excited about this thing. For everyone else it's total meh, because in all this time, mainstream didn't even catch with the over half a decade old HEDT parts. 7700K, if it was a 6 core CPU with everything else the same, now that would feel exciting even for 6700K users to upgrade to. And because it has just dual channel controller and less lanes on motherboards, it's not a direct threat to X99 platform and CPU's for it. But no, Intel, due to lack of serious competition picked the lazy way, just mildly refreshing the 6700K. Which is just boring.

 

[ratirt]

The thing is, 7700K is a boring CPU even if you still have an aging Core i7 920 from what, 6-7 years ago now? I was at that same point of decision. I had Core i7 920 running at 4GHz. I was deciding for newly released 6700K like a year ago and I just couldn't see a point. It was the same quad core with same number of HT threads, it was clocked tiny bit higher and it had slightly better IPC. Now, imagine how someone coming with more recent mainstream Haswells or Ivy Bridges would feel. Even less excited. You really still have to own like a dual core or maybe even Q6600 to be really excited about this thing. For everyone else it's total meh, because in all this time, mainstream didn't even catch with the over half a decade old HEDT parts. 7700K, if it was a 6 core CPU with everything else the same, now that would feel exciting even for 6700K users to upgrade to. And because it has just dual channel controller and less lanes on motherboards, it's not a direct threat to X99 platform and CPU's for it. But no, Intel, due to lack of serious competition picked the lazy way, just mildly refreshing the 6700K. Which is just boring.

Well I couldn't get this answer wrapped more precise as you did bro. The only improvement now for intel is to go more core and thread. That would be an improvement compared to previous gen's of I7.

 

[Tatty_Two]

If we measure any CPU's viability and/or success based on overclocking potential then it's a fail before it is launched simply because the numbers of users that actually overclock would not make for any profitability.

 

[EarthDog]

Sorry what was that? can't hear you over my 1.8ghz overclock on my XEON.

Sorry... I can't hear you through your glass ceiling and my stock cpu (which i can also overclock) performing better...

Guys, this chip isn't meant to sway haswell+ owners to it. But if you are on SB or ivybridge, a 20-25% increase is a lot. It takes away the glass ceiling nehelam and amd cpus have over modern midrange+ cards. People can wait for Zen... it's going to be good (haswell like IPC it seems), it will have more cores, and be cheaper per core...but it's only going to be worth it if you use those cores or haswell pricing doesn't come down to match.

IMO both companies have consumers by the short and curlies. One doesn't have any ipc upgrades across like 5 years (amd) and adds cores most dont need. The other improves 25% across 5 'generations' and the last chip, which is NO different than Devils Canyon was to Haswell, we are getting upset and waiting for a slower cpu...

... I can't say I understand that logic unless you need the cores and their price (which I guess their 8c/16t cpu will cost more than 7700K...). So to make price be worth it, you'd have to step down to 4c/8t cpu.... which is again, a bit slower than Kaby Lake. But at least it's better competition.

 

[mobiuus]

got to mention that majority of 7700k reviewed that can actually reach 5.0ghz with voltages 1.30v to 1.34v
are
engineering samples...

 

[RejZoR]

Well I couldn't get this answer wrapped more precise as you did bro. The only improvement now for intel is to go more core and thread. That would be an improvement compared to previous gen's of I7.

I don't think higher clock is viable anymore at this point. They'd have to dramatically improve IPC or "invent" new HT which manages to get 4 threads out of single physical core. Or just stack more cores although given ecosystem of software not really using beyond 4 cores (especially games), I can't really see that as any kind of benefit at the moment or for the near future. So, dramatic IPC improvement is really the only option. I mean, just look at Pentium 4 as well as AMD's latest Bulldozer based CPU's. You can only go as high with the clock. You can't just increase it forever till I don't know, 8 GHz and beyond. It just wouldn't work.

 

[Frick]

aye, exactly why I've held onto my FX-8350 (overclocked to 4.8GHZ) for so long.

It serves my needs. And despite what people say even at 4k (and especially at 2560 x 1440) it is more than capable in games. Maybe I only have 35-40FPS at 4k and 75--100FPS at 1440 but that's all I have needed.

And overclocking a 32nm CPU is fun.

People make comments like "what are you doing with a 1080 GPU with that CPU" and laugh at me.

And games becomes increasingly multithreaded so strangely 2017 games will run better on it than 2014 games.

 

[HTC]

yep... super disappointing... I hope zen stomps it into the dirt.

ZEN doesn't have to stomp it. All it has to do is be close enough (or match) to put pressure on Intel.

Once that's achieved, then we get price wars, which is what WE consumers want.

It's because AMD has been lagging too far behind Intel that prices have become this bad for the higher end, which ends up affecting the other price segments as well.

 

[ratirt]

I don't think higher clock is viable anymore at this point. They'd have to dramatically improve IPC or "invent" new HT which manages to get 4 threads out of single physical core. Or just stack more cores although given ecosystem of software not really using beyond 4 cores (especially games), I can't really see that as any kind of benefit at the moment or for the near future. So, dramatic IPC improvement is really the only option. I mean, just look at Pentium 4 as well as AMD's latest Bulldozer based CPU's. You can only go as high with the clock. You can't just increase it forever till I don't know, 8 GHz and beyond. It just wouldn't work.

Of course not and I'm not talking about the frequency of intel's CPU's but core count and threads. OC, as many ppl think now, is treated as an improvement. IMO it is a feature that's why they got the "K" version of processors. Pentium 4 was behind AMD back in the days(Even though Pentium had higher clock rates) since INTEL switched to longer pipeline boosting frequency hoping to mitigate the stalls in instruction flow which didn't work out as we all know. I7 was successful and we all could benefit from it. They didn't care as much about the frequency but instead they've reduced the pipeline stages and CPU didn't have to go through all of them if no needed. That was a huge difference even though the CPU frequency wasn't as big as Pentium 4's. That's just the simplified explanation. Of course there where other architectural changes but one mentioned was the most significant boost in performance. Intel didn't have to worry as much since AMD wasn't successful with they products in terms of IPC but still solid CPUs. Maybe now Intel will worry and should cause Kaby is nothing at least for me

 

[silkstone]

No major bump in performance? I guess I can hold back on upgrading another couple of years . . . I've been waiting a few already.

Honestly, unless you are building a whole new PC from scratch or have money to burn, I see little reason to upgrade any i5/i7 if you're just using it for gaming and every day tasks.
Hell, my HTPC with a C2Q can still play GTAV at decent frame rates and my old laptops (i5 and C2D) are still snappy as hell for what I use them for.

 

[qubit]

ZEN doesn't have to stomp it. All it has to do is be close enough (or match) to put pressure on Intel.

Once that's achieved, then we get price wars, which is what WE consumers want.

Unfortunately, I have a more cynical viewpoint - the cartel.

I can just see AMD and Intel getting into a nice little cartel where they avoid stepping onto each other's toes and prices stay high on both sides. It wouldn't surprise me if they even agreed that stock AMD performance would always lag Intel by just a little bit too, to keep up the perception that AMD is perpetually second and more into the "value" product.

A cartel is illegal of course, so they'll cleverly do it in a way that isn't found out.

It's all supposition of course, as I don't have any evidence that they'll actually do this, but I wouldn't put it past them.

 

[EarthDog]

Thats... that's a....that's a uh, creative thought. I'm going to leave it at that.

 

[Recon-UK]

Sorry... I can't hear you through your glass ceiling and my stock cpu (which i can also overclock) performing better...

Guys, this chip isn't meant to sway haswell+ owners to it. But if you are on SB or ivybridge, a 20-25% increase is a lot. It takes away the glass ceiling nehelam and amd cpus have over modern midrange+ cards. People can wait for Zen... it's going to be good (haswell like IPC it seems), it will have more cores, and be cheaper per core...but it's only going to be worth it if you use those cores or haswell pricing doesn't come down to match.

IMO both companies have consumers by the short and curlies. One doesn't have any ipc upgrades across like 5 years (amd) and adds cores most dont need. The other improves 25% across 5 'generations' and the last chip, which is NO different than Devils Canyon was to Haswell, we are getting upset and waiting for a slower cpu...

... I can't say I understand that logic unless you need the cores and their price (which I guess their 8c/16t cpu will cost more than 7700K...). So to make price be worth it, you'd have to step down to 4c/8t cpu.... which is again, a bit slower than Kaby Lake. But at least it's better competition.

Tell us more about glass ceilings with hardware that does not pronounce that issue please.