It does seem that the pending AMD Ryzen launch will stir the processor arena, Intel certainly is reacting. From the looks of it Intel will respin their Kaby Lake series with high clocked models and they will be adding Hyper-threading towards the Core i5 line of processors.
The new information was shared by CanardPC. The i5 7640k would be clocked 200 MHz faster then the 7600k is, which makes it a 4.0 GHz unit. The Core i7 7740K will get a 100 MHz higher clock frequency. These are added on the base clock, Turbo frequencies are yet to be announced. With a slightly higher clocked Kaby Lake Intel increased its lead in applications.
| Processor | Core i7-7740K | Core i7-7700K | Core i5-7640K | Core i5-7600K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cores/threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/? | 4/4 |
| Hyper-threading | Yes | Yes | N/A | No |
| Base clock | 4.2GHz | 4.0GHz | 4.0GHz | 3.8GHz |
| Turbo clock | 4.6GHz (assume) | 4.5GHz | N/A | 4.2GHz |
| Tdp | > 100 Watt | 91 Watt | > 100 Watt | 91 Watt |
| L3-cache | 8MB | 8MB | 6MB | 6MB |
That's as good as it gets with clock frequencies, the biggest and more intersting feature processor however is to be spotted in the Core i5 range, as you will spot that the 7640k will also get hyper-threading, and that is a huge step forward for the i5 range alright. The TDP of both models would become higher than the 91W of 7600K and 7700k, 100W is mentiones for both K models.
All these changes in an already new line-up does seem a little 'panicy' from Intel, Kaby Lake may have fewer cores than the Zen-processors, but in terms of IPC and Intel should still be ahead - meaning Kaby Lake should be faster in applications and games that use up to four cores.
Intel also is trying to move coffee lake forward and introduce 6-core processors, but is not clear when coffee lake will become available.
Intel Reacts to Ryzen with new Kaby Lake Core i5 7640k and i7 7740K Processors
