Intel's i7-7700K Kaby Lake Overclocked and Reviewed at Tom's!

[It's me!]

40 minutes ago, bugl7 said:

i thought thermals would have been better, but maybe it's an outlier

Makes me wonder if its soldered or not. 

[Sauron]

Basically it's the exact same as a 6700k, it just runs at a higher clock speed out of the box.

[NumLock21]

Everyone is just focusing on them stupid 7600K and 7700K. Real star of Kaby Lake isn't those, it's those budget cpus like the Pentium with HT. Now if they sell that for cheap, then it would be a great cpu to build on a budget.

[Speakerator]

4 hours ago, Sampsy said:

I'm just sitting here with my 5Ghz 2500k wondering if intel is ever going to release a product worth me buying. My PC is now nearly 5 and a half years old. This is getting stupid. 

Same. Was really rooting for Kaby to be awesome (and Zen to be awesome as well, to push down the prices :D) and finally upgrading my non-overclocked 2500 non-k, but currently, I'm rather unimpressed with Intels offering..

[Bananasplit_00]

5GHz isnt going to be as elusive anymore, not sure if im happy or sad about that tbh

[Drak3]

5 hours ago, Jed M said:

Certainly not worth the wait.

 

5 hours ago, Space Reptile said:

yay it performs EXACTLY THE SAME AS SKYLAKE

 

time to upgrade !!!!!!

 

 

While the gains are due simply due to clock increases, we don't know the full gamut of new features that Kaby will boast over Skylake.

If Intel focused on packing in the features, and they're legitimately useful to many people, they'd be well worth considering.

[MageTank]

It's almost as if I've been telling this forum for months now that Kaby would not be bringing any IPC boosts. @patrickjp93 Are we going to chalk this up as another fake result? God knows the only accurate Kaby result is the GB team and their Geekbench outlier. After all, it's the only result that showed an improvement over Skylake in terms of IPC. Perhaps every single other Geekbench score AND Tom's third party review exists to paint a false narrative about Kaby's true performance.

 

Look on the bright side Patrick, at least you didn't have to wait until January to get the inevitable result of our arguments. 

[TetraSky]

Barely any improvement over the previous gen again... Ok then. Really hope AMD start getting competitive again with ZEN, the last couple years have been ridiculous.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, TetraSky said:

Barely any improvement over the previous gen again... Ok then. Really hope AMD start getting competitive again with ZEN, the last couple years have been ridiculous.

Well, Broadwell was a 'tick' (and a die shrink of Haswell), and the tick generations usually see 5% IPC boosts at most.

Kaby is also a 'tick,' although it maintains the 14nm lipography of Skylake as well as just being a slight revision of the actual architecture. The minimal performance improvement was to be expected.

[unsubscribed]

Looks like snake oil to me.

[RotoCoreOne]

It looks like overclocking is slowly not becoming a thing anymore... I usually aim for 4.5ghz for overclocking and if the i7-7700k boosts to 4.5ghz already... why bother? Especially if of these i7 7700K's only oc 200mhz'ish more.

[MageTank]

10 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Well, Broadwell was a 'tick' (and a die shrink of Haswell), and the tick generations usually see 5% IPC boosts at most.

Kaby is also a 'tick,' although it maintains the 14nm lipography of Skylake as well as just being a slight revision of the actual architecture. The minimal performance improvement was to be expected.

Intel has done away with Tick-Tock. It's now "Process, Architecture, Optimization". Kaby Lake is to Skylake, what Devils Canyon was to Haswell. A mere refresh. Coffee Lake will be an optimization since 10nm yields are poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model

 

Quote

In March 2016 in a Form 10-K report, Intel announced that it had deprecated the Tick-Tock cycle in favor of a three-step "process-architecture-optimization" model, under which three generations of processors will be produced with a single manufacturing process, adding an extra phase for each with a focus on optimization. Intel had already broken the Tick-Tock cycle by delaying the 10 nanometer Cannonlake to 2017, and planning a third generation of processors using 14 nanometer transistors, Kaby Lake; the company stated that extending the lifecycle of each manufacturing process it uses would allow Intel to "further [optimize] our products and process technologies while meeting the yearly market cadence for product introductions."

Again, there is zero IPC improvement over Skylake with regards to Kaby Lake. The fact that it is also running hotter tells me that it is likely not using solder under the IHS, a rumor that would have made Kaby a compelling upgrade path for users that did not want to pay $50 for a delid, or impose the risk of doing it themselves. As it stands (assuming the SKU Tom's had was retail), Kaby is just Skylake with a factory overclock, and better native interface support (additional PCH PCIE lanes, usb 3.1, optane, etc). 

 

For desktop users, upgrading to Kaby Lake from Skylake (Assuming you already have the highest Skylake SKU) is silly. For mobile users, it's an entirely different story. The much higher clock speeds on the mobile SKU's offer additional performance at the exact same TDP. It's essentially a free overclock for the same amount of heat produced, meaning the cooling solutions do not change. Assuming they get the power consumption under control, and it consumes comparable power to it's Skylake counterparts, it's going to be a good thing. Especially once you consider how many of the mobile SKU's do not support overclocking in the slightest. Additional CPU performance, no matter how small, is always welcome in the mobile world. I am personally hoping to see some Kaby Lake GT4e SKU's in laptops. 

[Drak3]

16 minutes ago, RotoCoreOne said:

It looks like overclocking is slowly not becoming a thing anymore... I usually aim for 4.5ghz for overclocking and if the i7-7700k boosts to 4.5ghz already... why bother? Especially if of these i7 7700K's only oc 200mhz'ish more.

Because 5GHz isn't hard to hit with a decent cooling loop, and there is always room for OC on unlocked chips.

Also, the boost clock operated within predetermined power draw, load, thermal output limitations. The 7700K won't be able to maintain the 4.5GHz without a slight OC.

[aisle9]

So 82C at 4.8GHz and 1.3v...in a room cooled to 15C...59F...for performance that is clock-for-clock identical to the 6700K.

 

Whelp, I'm not wasting money on Kaby Lake.

[Drak3]

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

Intel has done away with Tick-Tock. It's now "Process, Architecture, Optimization". Kaby Lake is to Skylake, what Devils Canyon was to Haswell. A mere refresh. Coffee Lake will be an optimization since 10nm yields are poor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick-Tock_model

 

Again, there is zero IPC improvement over Skylake with regards to Kaby Lake. The fact that it is also running hotter tells me that it is likely not using solder under the IHS, a rumor that would have made Kaby a compelling upgrade path for users that did not want to pay $50 for a delid, or impose the risk of doing it themselves. As it stands (assuming the SKU Tom's had was retail), Kaby is just Skylake with a factory overclock, and better native interface support (additional PCH PCIE lanes, usb 3.1, optane, etc). 

 

For desktop users, upgrading to Kaby Lake from Skylake (Assuming you already have the highest Skylake SKU) is silly. For mobile users, it's an entirely different story. The much higher clock speeds on the mobile SKU's offer additional performance at the exact same TDP. It's essentially a free overclock for the same amount of heat produced, meaning the cooling solutions do not change. Assuming they get the power consumption under control, and it consumes comparable power to it's Skylake counterparts, it's going to be a good thing. Especially once you consider how many of the mobile SKU's do not support overclocking in the slightest. Additional CPU performance, no matter how small, is always welcome in the mobile world. I am personally hoping to see some Kaby Lake GT4e SKU's in laptops. 

I knew Kaby lake didn't strictly follow the tick tock, but I didn't know that Tick Tock was officially killed off.

And again, while a generalization can usually hold true, there can be outliers. We have to wait until Kaby has been thoroughly tested.

 

And upgrading from desktop Skylake to Kaby for performance is silly, but if there are enough useful new features to the chip, it might be a worth while upgrade in some use cases.

[rn8686]

Shame, at least some of Asus' new Z270 boards look sexy. 

 

[Scruffy90]

Skylake it is for me if my rig dies anytime soon like I am suspecting.

[LucidMew]

2 hours ago, MageTank said:

-snip-

For desktop users, upgrading to Kaby Lake from Skylake (Assuming you already have the highest Skylake SKU) is silly. For mobile users, it's an entirely different story. The much higher clock speeds on the mobile SKU's offer additional performance at the exact same TDP. It's essentially a free overclock for the same amount of heat produced, meaning the cooling solutions do not change. Assuming they get the power consumption under control, and it consumes comparable power to it's Skylake counterparts, it's going to be a good thing. Especially once you consider how many of the mobile SKU's do not support overclocking in the slightest. Additional CPU performance, no matter how small, is always welcome in the mobile world. I am personally hoping to see some Kaby Lake GT4e SKU's in laptops. 

Also, PcPer did a review/benchmark comparing the Core i7-7500U and the 6500U, both on (essentially) the same notebook. The Kaby Lake actually performed a lot better than the 200 to 400MHz upgrade, which PcPer attributes to the improved Speedstep implementation, getting to the higher clock, even faster, in addition to the "hurry up and wait" nature of programs like office work. Low Power Kaby Lake is something to watch out for.

 

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Kaby-Lake-Performance-Surprising-Jump-over-Skylake/General-System-Performan

[BuckGup]

9 hours ago, Pyrotechnika said:

I'm honestly not too impressed. 200MHz upgrade but way more heat and power? Anyone with Skylake shouldn't think about upgrading.

That's how Intel works. Wait 5 years then you will get 40-50% better performance and power usage 

[MageTank]

1 hour ago, LucidMew said:

Also, PcPer did a review/benchmark comparing the Core i7-7500U and the 6500U, both on (essentially) the same notebook. The Kaby Lake actually performed a lot better than the 200 to 400MHz upgrade, which PcPer attributes to the improved Speedstep implementation, getting to the higher clock, even faster, in addition to the "hurry up and wait" nature of programs like office work. Low Power Kaby Lake is something to watch out for.

 

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Intel-Kaby-Lake-Performance-Surprising-Jump-over-Skylake/General-System-Performan

I saw that. It's another reason I am extremely excited for Mobile Kaby. The improved performance (and potentially improved battery life) is a huge deal for the mobile world. Most desktop users could care less about power consumption and heat as long as it is within their PSU spec and within tolerable thermal limits (under 80C for most things). For mobile users, depending on how the device is built, even 70C becomes an issue as far as heat goes, and any additional minute in battery life is considered a big deal. 

 

That PCper article is well done, and more people need to look at it. Maybe then they won't think I am crazy with my IPC claims. 

 

Quote

This is where we start to see the balance of clock speed coming into the results. The 7th Generation Core i7-7500U is able to render the BMW example scene 11% faster than the Core i7-6500U and Gooseberry scene 12% faster. Considering that these have VERY long render times (33 minutes for the BMW test and 250 minutes for the Gooseberry) the results are again more impressive than many will expect. With no IPC improvements on the CPU architecture, these changes are purely in the process technology and platform implementation.

 

[patrickjp93]

4 hours ago, MageTank said:

It's almost as if I've been telling this forum for months now that Kaby would not be bringing any IPC boosts. @patrickjp93 Are we going to chalk this up as another fake result? God knows the only accurate Kaby result is the GB team and their Geekbench outlier. After all, it's the only result that showed an improvement over Skylake in terms of IPC. Perhaps every single other Geekbench score AND Tom's third party review exists to paint a false narrative about Kaby's true performance.

 

Look on the bright side Patrick, at least you didn't have to wait until January to get the inevitable result of our arguments. 

EXcept you're wrong, but hey, it's not just Geekbench, now TH has shown 3 more cases.

[MageTank]

Just now, patrickjp93 said:

EXcept you're wrong, but hey, it's not just Geekbench, now TH has shown 3 more cases.

This is gonna be fun. How am I wrong now?

[TopWargamer]

Intel only making marginal improvements because they have a virtual monopoly in the market? Shocked. I am absolutely shocked.

[Lays]

11 hours ago, It's me! said:

Makes me wonder if its soldered or not. 

of course it's not lol

 

6 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Because 5GHz isn't hard to hit with a decent cooling loop, and there is always room for OC on unlocked chips.

Also, the boost clock operated within predetermined power draw, load, thermal output limitations. The 7700K won't be able to maintain the 4.5GHz without a slight OC.

On skylake it is, for stability at least, booting into windows for a screenshot is easy sure, but stability at 5 Ghz on Skylake is damn near impossible. 

 

The OCN skylake OC thread has 92 samples last I checked, here's how %'s work right now in terms of clock speeds on the CPU's that have been stability tested.

 

[MageTank]

2 minutes ago, Lays said:

of course it's not lol

 

On skylake it is, for stability at least, booting into windows for a screenshot is easy sure, but stability at 5 Ghz on Skylake is damn near impossible. 

 

The OCN skylake OC thread has 92 samples last I checked, here's how %'s work right now in terms of clock speeds on the CPU's that have been stability tested.

 

I like how people seem to think that you can just fix binning by throwing a decent loop at it. "Any CPU can hit 5ghz if you cool it hard enough". Sure, in some cases, that might be true, but then it begs the question, is it 24/7 stable while doing so? Let's face it. Overclocking is very black and white. You are stable until you are unstable, that is the most simplistic truth of it. What might be stable today, may be unstable tomorrow. I know people with different overclock profiles for the different seasons year round, lol.

 

If proper cooling was all it took to make 5ghz stable on the vast majority of CPU's, more people would be doing so. We don't see that because the lottery is real. No loop will make a chip that is incapable of 5ghz, do 5ghz, at least not without the risk of severe degradation.

 

Almost reminds me of the people that claim to be running 24/7 5ghz without a delid.