





Click to Enlarge - Core i3-8350K top bar, Core i7-7700K/6700K scores underneath





Click to Enlarge



After announcing its 8th generation Core i7 and Core i5 mobile lineup earlier this week, we are now waiting for Intel to roll out desktop processors based on the same Coffee Lake architecture. One of the chips we are most intrigued with is the upcoming Core i3-8350K, Intel's first Core i3 part to wield four physical cores. Interestingly enough, someone got their hands on one and ran some benchmarks.We will get to those in a moment, but first let us go over some more details. Not only is the Core i3-8350K a quad-core processor, it is clocked fast out of the gate at 4GHz. There is no boost clock nor does it support Hyper Threading, but it does have an unlocked multiplier to make overclocking easier. It also sports 1GB of L2 cache (256KB per core) and 8MB of L3 cache, and has a manageable 65W TDP. With a decent cooler, it will be interesting to see how this thing overclocks.Even without overclocking, the Core i3-8350K looks to be a compelling option for budget builders and anyone else looking to get a lot of bang for their buck. Looking the leaked CPU-Z results, this spunky Core i3 part scored 503.3 points in single-threaded performance, and a more impressive 1,982 points in multi-threaded performance.The single-threaded score if faster than both the Core i7-6700K and even the Core i7-7700K , the latter of which is clocked faster at 4.2GHz, with added benefit of hitting a max Turbo frequency of 4.5GHz. Granted, both of the Core i7 parts are faster in multi-threaded performance, but they benefit from Hyper Threading. Clock for clock, it appears Intel made some decent improvements to IPC performance with Coffee Lake.This is what Intel has been promising. On the mobile side, Intel claims users will see "up to a 40 percent" uplift in benchmarks like SYUSmark and MobileMark, compared to 7th generation Kaby Lake processors. And on the desktop front, Intel previously said its flagship Core i7-8700K will offer an 11 percent performance gain over the current Core i7-7700K, with multi-threaded performance jumping a little over 51 percent (due to a higher core/thread count).Several AIDA64 benchmarks also show the Core i3-8350K competing favorably with current generation processors, and in particular the Core i7-6700K. The Core i3 part was tested on a Z370 motherboard. Some of the labels are wonky since Z370 motherboards are not yet officially supported, but what we see is the Core i3-8350K leading in CPU and RAM performance, albeit at what appears to be a 119MHz overclock.The bottom line here is that Intel appears to have brewed up a decent performance boost with Coffee Lake. And if these results are any indication of things to come, the Core i3-8350K could end up being a popular chip.