Intel Skylake / Kaby Lake

[Sweepr]

It's 'official' guys. Meet Core i3-7350K!

Core i3-7350K - Intel's First Unlocked Core i3

4.2 GHz, 4 MB L3 Cache, $177.34

On a different note, Pentium G4620 is priced at $98, which means Intel's latest architecture 2C/4T are now below $100. It would be huge if Pentium G4600 also supports HT at $87, but I don't have specs yet. Note that these are early prices, could go down at launch or over time.

http://www.shopblt.com/search/order_id=%21ORDERID%21&s_max=25&t_all=1&s_all=BX80677

 

[jpiniero]

Interesting, but at $177 that's practically i5 pricing.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Interesting, but at $177 that's practically i5 pricing.

True, but on the other hand, 4.2Ghz stock... Mmm.

Now I have a tough decision. My Z170 Pro4S ATX mobo can "SKY OC" a locked Skylake i5, to probably around 4.4-4.5Ghz. Do I do that, or get one of these new i3 K CPUs, and flash my BIOS to a KBL-compatible BIOS, and lose "SKY OC"? Decisions, decisions.

 

[mikk]

Same price for the i7-7700k compared to 6700k.

 

[TheELF]

True, but on the other hand, 4.2Ghz stock... Mmm.

Yes awesome stock clocks,but if (big if but k part) it turbos up to say ~4,5 there is little point in overclocking it,except for kicks...
If mobo manufacturers manage some sort of kaby-oc on the G4620..now that would be something.

(overclock a locked sky i5 if you want max performance)

 

[SAAA]

Interesting, but at $177 that's practically i5 pricing.

That's the biggest problem, yet it's still 75$ less than the other least expensive K model, the i5. I know there's base clock overclocking but it isn't officially supported and that hinders AVX performance a lot, if this i3 has it then it's much better than overclocked Skylake i3s.

Yes awesome stock clocks,but if (big if but k part) it turbos up to say ~4,5 there is little point in overclocking it,except for kicks...
If mobo manufacturers manage some sort of kaby-oc on the G4620..now that would be something.

(overclock a locked sky i5 if you want max performance)

Looking at the table above it seems like the advertised speed is either the max boost or base clock if without turbo, check out the i7-7700K at 4.5 instead of 4.2GHz base.
So the unlocked i3 is 4.2 default clock, also it will probably reach 4.5 on both cores with little to no efforts on stock cooler too, given the better process and binning? ...it's a K sku after all.
With a 95W and + TDP cooler I'm pretty sure it will reach 4.6-4.7 on most chips, heck if the new i7 does really reach 5GHz on good samples this might do 5.1-5.2 stable on golden ones.

 

[TheELF]

That's the biggest problem, yet it's still 75$ less than the other least expensive K model, the i5. I know there's base clock overclocking but it isn't officially supported and that hinders AVX performance a lot, if this i3 has it then it's much better than overclocked Skylake i3s.



Looking at the table above it seems like the advertised speed is either the max boost or base clock if without turbo, check out the i7-7700K at 4.5 instead of 4.2GHz base.
So the unlocked i3 is 4.2 default clock, also it will probably reach 4.5 on both cores with little to no efforts on stock cooler too, given the better process and binning? ...it's a K sku after all.
With a 95W and + TDP cooler I'm pretty sure it will reach 4.6-4.7 on most chips, heck if the new i7 does really reach 5GHz on good samples this might do 5.1-5.2 stable on golden ones.

That's pretty much exactly what I think as well.
For the bolded part,think about the additional cost of a decent z board and the cooling,maybe even of a better psu and faster ram,it's just not worth the extra cost (at least for me) for just 5-600Mhz more,you can just stick the i3 k in a low budged mobo with stock cooler and have it turbo to ~4,5 for much less money.

 

[inf64]

Kaby Lake looks exactly like 4690K and 4790K refresh of Haswell. Pretty solid base and Turbo clock uplift, probably better OCs on air. If the price stays similar as for Skylake parts then it is a win.

 

[Justinbaileyman]

Guys if you want I will be the Guinea pig here and purchase a i3 7350k first and let everyone know how well it'll O/C's.I was planning on getting one anyways just for the heck of it and now that we know its got a stock clock of 4.2Ghz, well that was all I needed to know before making sure I wanted one.So basically it is a cut down version of a i7 7700k. I am guessing these will do 5.0Ghz no problem at all.

 

[VirtualLarry]

you can just stick the i3 k in a low budged mobo

Is that true? I thought, that in order to overclock, you had to have the enthusiast-level chipset (Z170, currently). That even if you had an unlocked-multiplier CPU, you couldn't overclock in a lesser-chipset board. Something about having to pay the "overclocking tax" twice. Intel got pissed that people were able to OC the G3258 CPU in H81 boards, remember? They wanted people to have to buy Z97 boards to OC those CPUs.

Edit: Oh, wait, you said "Turbo", not "overclock". Are we so sure that the i3 K will even have Turbo? I don't think that that has been a feature of any i3 ever. Of course, there hasn't been an i3 K CPU ever, either.

 

[TheELF]

Edit: Oh, wait, you said "Turbo", not "overclock". Are we so sure that the i3 K will even have Turbo? I don't think that that has been a feature of any i3 ever. Of course, there hasn't been an i3 K CPU ever, either.

Yes I was talking about turbo,there has never been a k model without turbo,nothing to do but wait and see I guess.

 

[lolfail9001]

Yes I was talking about turbo,there has never been a k model without turbo,nothing to do but wait and see I guess.

There has never been an i3 with turbo either, your assumption is faulty at the very base.

 

[TheELF]

Which assumption?
I never said that I'm sure about this,it's a hope/guess because it's a FACT that no k model ever was without turbo.

 

[coercitiv]

it's a FACT that no k model ever was without turbo.

It's a FACT that no K model ever was with less than four physical cores. Let's hope/guess i3 K is a quad, then get back to the ground and realize turbo is i5/i7 specific, not K specific.

 

[VirtualLarry]

realize turbo is i5/i7 specific, not K specific.

That was my personal understanding as well.

 

[LTC8K6]

If it has turbo, then 4.2 is probably the turbo speed. The list seems to use turbo speeds for chips with turbo.

 

[quietplates]

Assuming the i3-7350K has 2c/4t, turbo, and HT - that would make for a very interesting budget gaming rig. All of the games in my library except Ashes want high single-core perf, and won't see perf improvements beyond four hardware threads. This puts the i5 market in a squeeze. If you're gaming on titles that only use 4t, the i3 seems to do you justice for cheaper. If your gaming titles use more than that, then you'd want to skip the i5 and go for 4c/8t Skylake 6700K for only a little more cash.

Thus, I suspect the i3-7350K won't have turbo. This keeps it from encroaching on i5 territory.

 

[SpaceBeer]

If i3-7350K requires Z170/270 MB and after-market cooler for OC, than i5-7500 + decent B150 MB would be much better choice for almost all tasks for that price.

In my opinon, i3 doesn't need higher clocks. ST performance is already great with Skylake i3-6xxx. it needs to be cheaper. But if new Pentiums will have HT, than I don't see why would someone pay almost 2x more for 10-15% better ST performance. For that difference, you could buy faster GPU and get better overall performance

 

[IntelUser2000]

Intel must be killing themselves not being able to spec its lowest Core i3 much better than the best Pentium product. It's not a deliberate action, but unfortunate consequence of high-end computer chips not advancing. You pay going from 3.7 to 3.9GHz almost 25% more.

The best they can do is if rumored specs of Cannonlake turns out to be true, and x700K equivalent Core i7 is a 8 core part. Still it'll be dismal for them because above 4 threads benefit even less portion of people than going from 2 to 4. At least 2 cores with Hyperthreading you get benefit from games. How's going from 4 cores + HT to 8 cores + HT sound when even 4 cores to 4 cores + HT gains are minimal in lots of cases?

Timeline of "fast enough" computing

1. Core 2: Good enough computing. Fast enough for majority of folks
2. "Sandy Bridge" cores. Last big advancement for CPU.
3. "Skylake" cores. With fast enough memory you may somewhat distance yourself from Haswell, mostly in games
4. "Kabylake" offers last chance for overclock gains over predecessor. Hard limit reached.
5. Beyond... : Above 4 core + HT benefits increasingly less amount of users due to the last stronghold of advancements(media encoding), being accelerated by GPUs and special function hardware. IPC gains per generation goes from 5-10% to 3-5%. Overclock speeds stay at 4.8-5GHz, with base clocks only couple of hundred MHz behind.

 

[jpiniero]

If i3-7350K requires Z170/270 MB and after-market cooler for OC, than i5-7500 + decent B150 MB would be much better choice for almost all tasks for that price.

I would think it would depend on how high the 7350K can clock. But yeah, Intel would not have done this unlocked i3 unless they were sure it wouldn't affect i5 sales at all.

 

[Dave2150]

That's the biggest problem, yet it's still 75$ less than the other least expensive K model, the i5. I know there's base clock overclocking but it isn't officially supported and that hinders AVX performance a lot, if this i3 has it then it's much better than overclocked Skylake i3s.



Looking at the table above it seems like the advertised speed is either the max boost or base clock if without turbo, check out the i7-7700K at 4.5 instead of 4.2GHz base.
So the unlocked i3 is 4.2 default clock, also it will probably reach 4.5 on both cores with little to no efforts on stock cooler too, given the better process and binning? ...it's a K sku after all.
With a 95W and + TDP cooler I'm pretty sure it will reach 4.6-4.7 on most chips, heck if the new i7 does really reach 5GHz on good samples this might do 5.1-5.2 stable on golden ones.

K CPU's don't come with stock coolers anymore. So this i3 7350k won't either.

 

[Bouowmx]

Intel must be killing themselves not being able to spec its lowest Core i3 much better than the best Pentium product. It's not a deliberate action, but unfortunate consequence of high-end computer chips not advancing. You pay going from 3.7 to 3.9GHz almost 25% more.

Pentium and under do not support AVX(2): http://ark.intel.com/compare/90730,90729

You may debate the usefulness of AVX, but the instruction set is a large step-up.

 

[VirtualLarry]

K CPU's don't come with stock coolers anymore. So this i3 7350k won't either.

You're probably right, unfortunately. That was one of the great things about the G3258 budget overclocker. It came with a copper-cored stock heatsink, that would generally take the chip as far as a cheap H81 mobo could push it.

Now that's just an added expense for the i3-7350K. So much for being an ideal budget OC CPU.

 

[Dave2150]

You're probably right, unfortunately. That was one of the great things about the G3258 budget overclocker. It came with a copper-cored stock heatsink, that would generally take the chip as far as a cheap H81 mobo could push it.

Now that's just an added expense for the i3-7350K. So much for being an ideal budget OC CPU.

Saves the environment overall though - forces people to buy an aftermarket cooler that can be used for several CPU generations. Many 'K' CPU owners threw their stock hsf into the trash etc.

 

[PPB]

Saves the environment overall though - forces people to buy an aftermarket cooler that can be used for several CPU generations. Many 'K' CPU owners threw their stock hsf into the trash etc.

This cant be serious. Good guy Intel saving the global warming is your argument for not shipping a stock cooler?

Skylake K buyers can use the stock solution of several past generations from Intel, even 775 with some teaking. The subjects revolves minimizing BoM and maximizing profit, not the ECO BS you are trying to say.