Intel Core i5 7600K preview

The Kaby Lake Quad-Core processor tested

Today we take a first look at Intel Kaby lake processors in the form of a Core i5 7600K processor. A processor that has been fabbed on the 14nm node, a spin-of from SkyLake. The Core i5 series processors are intended to be the more wallet friendly offering from Intel, for a more mainstream to high-end consumer. In this preview we look at the performance of this processor in a wide variety of benchmarks and situations.

Kaby Lake Core i5 7600K and Core i7 7700K processors are two models released for desktop platform. Though you'd think it is an all new chip, it is merely a respin seen from Skylake, meaning both series processors are Socket 1151. being a respin this also means that IF you are in the market for a new series 7000 processor, your H170 or Z170 motherboard will be compatible with Kaby Lake after a motherboard BIOS firmware upgrade (this will be mandatory). If you are interested in new technologies like Intel Optane, you will however need to upgrade to the upcoming Z270 and H270 range motherboards. Much like Skylake the new series Kaby Lake processors are fairly energy efficient yet still as powerful as they have been for years. In this preview we peek briefly at the Core i5 7600K. An unlocked Kaby Lake processor that has four cores based on a 91W TDP, similar to Skylake TDP wise.



CPU Core i7-7700K Core i5-7600K Core i7-6700K Core i5-6600K Core i7-4790K Core i7-4770K Codename Kaby Lake Kaby Lake Skylake Skylake Haswell Haswell Package LGA1151 LGA1151 LGA1151 LGA1151 LGA1150 LGA1150 Cores/threads 4/8 4/4 4/8 4/4 4/8 4/8 Frequency（GHz） 4.2-4.5 3.8-4.2 4.0-4.2 3.5-3.9 4.0-4.4 3.5-3.9 memory DDR4-2133 DDR4-2133 DDR4-2133 DDR4-2133 DDR3-1600 DDR3-1600 IGP Intel HD 630 Intel HD 630 Intel HD 530 Intel HD 530 Intel HD 4600 Intel HD 4600 L3 Cache 8MB 6MB 8MB 6MB 8MB 8MB Fab 14nm 14nm 14nm 14nm 22nm 22nm Unlocked multiplier Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes TDP 91W 91W 91W 91W 84W 95W



Kaby Lake is the third step in Intels 'process-architecture-optimization' strategy on 14nm. So yes these chips are, much like Broadwell and Skylake, produced at 14nm, but should get some optimizations and features such as support for Optane SSDs. The quad core CPU has 6 MB of L3 cache, and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory. For the gaming community the two K model processors are the most important. As stated, in this article we focus on the Core i5 7600K. Let's get started shall we?