Core i5 7600K processor review: Desktop Kaby Lake

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A CPU tested

Intel Core i5 7600K
The Kaby Lake Quad-Core processor 

From preview to review, join us as we check out the Intel Core i5 7600K processor. Once again developed on the 14nm node the Core i5 series processors are intended to be the more budget friendly offering from Intel, for a more mainstream consumer. For this review 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 for the desktop platform have been released. 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. This also means that IF you are in the market for a new series 7000 processor, your H170 or Z170 motherboard can be compatible with Kaby Lake after a motherboard BIOS upgrade. The new series Kaby Lake processors are fairly energy efficient, still as powerful as they have been for years. If you are interested in new technologies like Intel Optane, you will however need to upgrade to a Z270 and H270 range motherboard. In this review we test the Core i5 7600K. An unlocked Kaby Lake processor that has four cores and a slim 91W TDP, similar to Skylake TDP wise, once again a processor fabbed on the 14nm fabrication process. 


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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 DDR4-2400 DDR4-2400 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 Intel's "process-architecture-optimization' strategy. The chips are, much like Broadwell and Skylake, produced at 14nm, but should get some optimizations, 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. The Z270 and H270 series motherboards will all be offered with DDR4 though. For the gaming community the two K model processors are the most important.

Kaby Lake is the code name used by Intel for the 14nm processor micro-architecture under development and is the successor to the Skylake architecture. As stated, in this review we focus on the Core i5 7600K. Let's get started shall we?

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