Right after IDF a lot of chatter has hit the web. As planned Intel is going to release Kaby Lake architecture based processors in the coming months. The desktop processors based on Kaby will use LGA 1151. Two processors will be an unlocked K series processor.

Kaby Lake will already be the 3rd generation processors that Intel fabs at 14nm. The Kaby Lake generation will be the successor to the current Skylake generation. That makes Kaby Lake the third step in Intel's "process-architecture-optimization' strategy. The chips are, much like Broadwell and Skylake, produced at 14nm, but should get some optimizations including support for Optane-SSD's.

Intel will release three product stacks based on power utilization, LGA1151-Standard Power; LGA1151-Low Power; and LGA1151-Ultra Low Power based on the processor TDP. Information that reaches us through OCaholic shows standard Power Core i7-7700K and the Core i5-7600K. These K models obviously have unlocked multipliers.

Earlier this year the specs of Intel Core i7 7700K Kaby Lake already processor surfaced in the SiSoft SANDRA benchmark results page. The Core i7 7700K listed would be a quad-core with HyperThreading enabling 8 logical CPUs. The clock frequencies have changed towards higher numbers though. As it stands now this flagship quad-core processor is clocked at 4.2 GHz and can Boost to 4.50 GHz. To compare a little, a Core i7 6700K runs at 4.00 GHz with a boost to 4.20 GHz. The cache is the same, 256 KB per-core L2, and 8 MB shared L3 caches. Clock-for-clock and core for core you should not expect much performance differences though. The processors will use the current socket LGA1151 which means that after a motherboard firmware upgrade, you should be ready to go with your current motherboard. The second K model would be the Core i5-7600K and will get a 3.80 GHz clock that may boost towards its 4.00 GHz Turbo. It will have less L3 cache (6 MB) and also will lack hyper-threading. Lower in the stack will be lower TDP based SKUs like the i7-7700 (non-K) with a 3.60 GHz base clock and TBA turbo clock.

Processor Name Frequency (GHz) Cache C/T Turbo Boost (GHz) Intel HD Graphics Dynamic Frequency (MHz) Unlocked USD Socket 1151 Standard Power (95W) i7-7700K 4.20 8 MB 4/8 4.50 Next Gen HD Graphics TBA Yes TBA i5-7600K 3.80 6 MB 4/4 4.00 Next Gen HD Graphics TBA Yes TBA Socket 1151 Low Power (65W) i7-7700 3.60 8 MB 4/8 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA i5-7600 3.50 6 MB 4/4 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA i5-7500 3.40 6 MB 4/4 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA i5-7400 3.30 6 MB 4/4 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA Socket 1151 Ultra Low Power (35W) i7-7700T 2.90 8 MB 4/8 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA i5-7600T 2.70 6 MB 4/4 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA i5-7500T 2.40 6 MB 4/4 TBA Next Gen HD Graphics TBA No TBA

K - Unlocked

T - Power-optimized lifestyle

Even at 35 Watt there will be a Ultra Low Power quad-core processor, the Core i7-7700T will have 2.90 GHz clocks and 8 MB of L3 cache. More SKUs can be spotted in the table, courtesy of OCaholic.





