Comments Locked

125 Comments

Back to Article

  • RichUK - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Very thorough review, thank you!

    Shame you didn't get a better sample.

    Will you look to do a focused review around delidding and the associated overlooking benefits?
  • RichUK - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    That's should read 'overclocking' - Damn auto correct on my phone!
  • close - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Yeah... great review that calls a CPU that's basically identical to the previous generation as "The New Out-of-the-box Performance Champion". While mathematically it can be considered true I think such a title is grossly misleading.

    Intel brought almost 0 improvements over generations but didn't bother dropping the price accordingly. This isn't "the new champion", this is last year's CPU a little overclocked. The fact that it comes "pre-overclocked" doesn't make it a champion nor does it make the title and conclusion of this article any more valuable.

    We'll see how Zen does but if it offers similar performance to Intel's offerings for substantially less money a lot of journalists will have to backtrack on their "Intel's having a hard time advancing performance because there's no more headroom and prices can't go down due to research and fabrication costs".
  • close - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Also this: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/01/intel-core-...

    Arstechnica's conclusions:
    "With identical performance to Skylake, Intel brings desktop performance to a standstill."
    "the Kaby Lake desktop chips are but a mere clock speed boost disguised under the nomenclature of a new CPU generation. From an IPC standpoint, there's nothing to tell Kaby Lake apart from Skylake"

    AnandTech's conclusions:
    "The New Champion"
    "The Core i7-7700K sits at the top of the stack, and performs like it."
    "handily mops the floor with the Devil’s Canyon part [nb, 3 year old part!], resigning it to history."

    Intel are selling yesterday's soup, reheated but at the same price and Ian is trying hard to make everyone think that soup is like wine, it gets better with age. The truth is that there's basically no reason whatsoever to upgrade this year since we're still talking about a 6700K with 200MHz. *ANY* user buying a K part should be able to achieve that with last year's CPUs.
  • close - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    P.S. Devil's Canyon is actually a 4 year old part that was overclocked and relaunched 3 years ago. So it's "refreshing" to see how AnandTech gets excited about a brand new CPU that manages to be ~10% faster than a 4 year old CPU with slightly lower (boost) clocks in office/workstation scenarios and which brings 0 benefits in gaming scenarios. That would be a ~5% average improvement for a user.

    Wow Ian, it really doesn't take much to get you all hyped up these days, does it?
  • Lolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Anandtech was a shill site for a long time, Kaby Lake was going to prove whose site is that. Doubts answered.
  • pogostick - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    The best line is the first line: "The Intel Core i7-7700K is what happens when a chip company stops trying."
  • slickr - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Yeah, very suspicious of Ian. Is he getting paid to shill for Intel or is he that BAD at journalism!?
  • fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    As someone who has read Ian's work for years, he is no shill. I disagree with his politics, but he is a good, honest journalist. Was he overly generous in this piece? No doubt. Calling it a great overclocked then saying it only boosts 300 MHz was a giveaway there. I am quite certain purch wanted this to go out as a softer piece for the $$$$, so Ian disguised his contempt the best he could. Look for the clues, they are there. Only reason to go Kaby is if you really want an optane cache. He kind of made that clear I thought.
  • RichUK - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    I skipped to the overclocking section and didn't read the rest. ;) That's all I'm interested in.
  • 1PYTHON1 - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link

    u do realize the 6700k only clocks to 4.5 or 4.6 if u get a good one...this will do 5ghz. so saying theres 0 improvement is crap.
  • Gasaraki88 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Why are you testing with Win7 when the CPUs have more functionality under Windows 10?
  • ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    I thought Intel wasn't going to release Windows 7/8.1 drivers for 200-series chipsets and Kaby Lake in accordance with Microsoft's policy that Skylake was the last new CPU family to be officially supported by those OS. If Anandtech tested Z270 motherboards and Kaby Lake with Windows 7 did Intel end up releasing Windows 7 drivers for 200-series chipsets after-all or do existing 100-series drivers work with the 200-series or is some other workaround being done?
  • jimbo2779 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    I dont think it was intel saying they wouldn't release drivers for win 7, that would be them shooting themselves in the foot big time. Microsoft were saying they would not be supporting new features in CPUs.

    I believe this means things like a new sse instruction set would not have native support in windows prior to 8. However this does not stop a CPU manufacturer from implementing support via drivers which is what intel would likely do at some point if not at launch.
  • Shadow7037932 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Probably because they don't want to re-test the old systems under Windows 10 just for this review. But yeah, I do think it's about time AnandTech move on to Windows 10 as the baseline OS.
  • Iketh - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Identical IPC yet AVX Offset support? Can clarify plz?
  • Iketh - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    nevermind, you clarified in overclocking section
  • Iketh - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    for anyone else wondering, AVX Offset is not an additional instruction set, it's a bios setting
  • User.Name - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    It's really time for a new suite of gaming tests if they aren't showing any difference between the CPUs.

    For one thing, average framerates are meaningless when doing CPU tests. You need to be looking at minimum framerates.

    Just look at the difference between CPUs in Techspot's Gears of War 4 performance review: http://www.techspot.com/review/1263-gears-of-war-4...

    Or GameGPU's Watch Dogs 2 CPU test: http://gamegpu.com/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/...

    So many people keep repeating that CPUs don't matter for gaming these days, but that's absolutely wrong. The problem is that many of the hardware review sites that have been around for a long time seem to have forgotten how to properly benchmark games.
  • takeshi7 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    I agree that AnandTech should improve their gaming benchmarks. Some frame time variance measurements would be nice, and also some runs with lower graphics settings so that the CPU is the bottleneck rather than the GPU.
  • Toss3 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    TBH they shouldn't just post mins, but decent FCAT analyses like the ones over on Guru3d.com
  • User.Name - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Well that involves a lot more hardware and time to record/analyze the results, which is why I suggested looking at minimum framerates. But you're right that would be a good improvement too.
  • edzieba - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    "For one thing, average framerates are meaningless when doing CPU tests. You need to be looking at minimum framerates."

    Framerate needs to be dropped entirely. Instead, frame render times (specifically range and variance) give a better picture of perceived 'responsiveness', as well as render times being convertible to an FPS value (though not vice versa).
  • Alexvrb - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Agreed, when reviewing CPUs it would stand to reason that you'd want to use games that tax the CPU.
  • Notmyusualid - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link

    Your second link there was especially interesting - thats why I went for more cores than four.

    My 14C/28T Xeon has to feed 2x 1070 FTWs. I don't think quad core & multi-gpu are that great together, in my experience.

    For all the talk about games don't use more than 'x' cores, I see my cores / threads nicely loaded up for many games. Even MW3 shows activity over 12 Threads, however small, and thats old now.

    I just got a 6950X for a song, and the scouser seller backed out on me AFTER I paid. So I get to wait 5 to 7 working days for my money back (thanks PayPal), and I won't get to see how much frequency would have affected my everyday computing. I won't be paying north of 1400 GBP for one, that I can tell you.
  • Mondozai - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Who the fuck is testing with GTX 980@1080p? It should be a GTX 1080@1080p because as games' visual demands go up progressively, it will show how the processor ages. This review is useless from that regard.

    Go to Sweclockers or any other website for a real review. AT has fallen so fucking much it's hilarious.
  • Gasaraki88 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Yeah... surprisingly Tom's Hardware has really indepth reviews now a days just like the olden times. Considering that Microsoft has said that OSes lower than Windows 10 will not be supported on Kaby Lake, i'm surprised they are still using Windows 7 to to their tests.
  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    There are lots of people that use a 980 with something like a 2500k or 2600k and might be wondering what a new cpu would do for them.
  • dakishimesan - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Also using the same testing setup allows the results to be directly comparable to previous chips. They already mentioned in one of the articles regarding Kaby Lake (I think it was the i5 review) that they will be rolling out a new testbed and testing suite in February.
  • BrokenCrayons - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    From the Test Bed and Setup page:

    "This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible."

    -and-

    "Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature."

    After reading those two lines, I really don't know what Anandtech's memory settings were like for this article.
  • Ian Cutress - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    The boards will default to DDR4-2133 as a base memory frequency, regardless of processor. JEDEC has profiles for 2133 and 2400, and Kaby Lake is compatible with the JEDEC DDR4-2400 profile. So in order to achieve this, we use kits that offer DDR4-2400 JEDEC memory profiles via XMP. Enable XMP, and you're at the frequency that's officially supported by the processor, which is JEDEC. Out of the box usually refers to the BIOS, as we tend to eschew special 'media' BIOSes that might adjust certain performance parameters.
  • ccdrop - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    I just wanted to give you guys a super big THANK YOU! for testing under Windows 7 64-bit SP1, now I can be excited about the 7700k again!

    My big worry was that the 7700k was going to be a useless upgrade from my 2600K due to the whole "not officially support" drama as I flat have no interest in windows 10 (Please don't reply with Pro-10 comments I will never read them as I will never check these comments again I am just here to say thank you, along with the fact I have a laundry list about a mile long as to why I despise 10, I have thoroughly tested it for my use cases and it is a very solid downgrade. I am not a gamer so do it for the games is meaningless. As for security, my main workstation isn't attached to any networks and if you have local access to the system 10 is no better then 7, finally as for doing it for the "new features" just because you know new features are new... I will wait and see if the 7700k really runs 10~20% better on Windows 10 than windows 7 WITH MY SOFTWARE not games or things I don't use, then I'll switch. However as of now on my current hardware Windows 10 runs about 10~20% slower then windows 7 with my software, and is vastly more prone to errors and workflow interruptions.)
  • negusp - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    stfu, it is a pretty useless upgrade. 10-20% over a 2600k is nothing to be excited about.

    wait for Ryzen or Cannonlake. if you think your 2600k is anywhere near obsolete you have to be kidding me.
  • fm13 - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    I'm still using my i7 860 which is still OK at stock frequencies.
  • The_Assimilator - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    AnandTech reviews that are on time, what sorcery is this? I sincerely hope to see more of it this year!
  • just4U - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    I do not recall Ian ever being late to the party on his reviews...
  • Thatguy97 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Ryan is always late

    Remember Fiji? And the "on the way" gtx 950 review?
  • Toss3 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    "In most of our benchmarks, the results are clear: a stock Core i7-7700K beat our overclocked Core i7-4790K in practically every CPU-based test (Our GPU tests showed little change)."

    Wait the 4790K was overclocked? You didn't mention the clockspeed anywhere. And how can a 5820K be faster than a 6800K (Grid: Autosport on MSI R9 290X)? You really need to let your readers know what speeds these CPUs are running at.
  • Thatguy97 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    No fucking increase in IPC

    Damn we need some competition bad and shame on anandtech for not ragging on Intel for lack of innovation
  • ThomasS31 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Thanks... though it would be time to upgrade the GPU part to at least a GTX1080 or more like a TXP... I see on other tests, that those, especially the TXP shows some differences in high end gpus more. GTX980 is limiting these days too heavy.
  • ThomasS31 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    I meant difference in high end CPUs... ofc. Sorry.

    Why no edit on your site? :)
  • pxnx - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    These games are ancient, why even bother benchmarking them?
  • Michael Bay - Saturday, January 14, 2017 - link

    >2015
    >ancient
  • Mithan - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    I have a 2500k, and I am going to upgrade (its 6 years old).

    Seriously considering a i7 7700k, people keep telling me to go for Zen because I am going to see a "big difference with games", even though those same people know that Zen will run slower on a per core basis.

    I don't see this "big difference" with extra cores in todays games.

    We can extrapolate based on current benchmarks, that the i7 7700k will be faster for games, as seen by using the 68xx Intel Series to compare against, even in Ashes of the Singularity.

    I can see a "big difference" going from Core i5 to Core i7 or Core i5 to 6/8 Cores, but I don't see a big difference going from Core i7 to 6 or 8 cores in GAMES.

    I get that unzipping documents, handbreak, etc are all going to be faster, but I don't particularly care about all those apps I rarely use (if I use them). It isn't like a 7700k is going to choke on Chrome.

    I get that a 6 or 8 core will let me play a game and stream content faster (I don't stream).

    Can somebody else sound in on my opinion?
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    From what's known about Zen so far, you are correct. If all you care about is standard PC stuff and gaming, you're better off with a Kabey Lake i5 or i7. It looks like Zen will be cheaper but similar performing alternative to the Broadwell E processors for those that do more "workstation class" stuff. Of course that remains to be seen until we get some real unbiased benchmarks.
  • close - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Until we see some retail parts it's hard to get an good idea about Zen. Clocks may vary from ES chips and the price might be motivating enough. 5-10% less performance for 40% lower price could be appealing to anybody who's not looking only at the very highest end of every component.
  • close - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Also if you plan on holding onto this new CPU for a long time then go for more cores even if it comes with slightly lower clocks. You'll very likely be able to overclock it and squeeze more MHz but you'll never squeeze in more cores. And remember that 6-7 years ago dual-cores were considered the norm while today some games won't even start on a dual core.

    Game performance is getting less and less dependent on CPU so personally I would always go for the CPU that offers better general performance and more cores than one with slightly higher clocks that focuses the performance in games and gaming benchmarks. If you want better game performance think of a better GPU, that will actually bring palpable improvement over generations.

    I'd hold on to the old 2500k for a while, until we get some nice reviews for what's coming.
  • carticket - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Just popping in (and registering) to echo that the 2500k is still a great CPU and this is not a great time to hop on the upgrade train with such an incremental upgrade over Skylake.
    I had a memory failure in my system, and that got me seriously considering a Kaby Lake upgrade, but for what would likely be a $500-600 upgrade, I just don't see a significant benefit. I say this as someone who hopped on the 970 train (upgrade from a 560 Ti) a few months before the 1070s hit the market with vastly better performance.
  • Toss3 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    The 7700K is going to be a massive upgrade and definitely worth it if you are currently on something older than Haswell. If your software/games are running at a decent framerate, and you really don't need to upgrade, then I'd suggest waiting as we'll start seeing 6 cores becoming the standard pretty soon (first with Zen and then with Coffee Lake).
  • close - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Aren't we talking about the exact same massive upgrade a 6700K would have provided a year ago? If that wasn't enough to convince a user to upgrade then why would it be now?
    Upgrading now means they've just waited one more year with a really old CPU but ended up paying the same price for the same performance this year.

    And thinking about an upgrade and those massive benefits just before we finally have a hope that AMD might launch something competitive isn't the best strategy even if your framerates already suffer. For the first time in years Intel might be forced to drop prices but why wait a couple of months when you can pay full price now for last year's CPU, right?
  • lopri - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    +1. (minus AMD part. I will believe that one when I see it)

    Same performance, and even less overclocking (% wise) for bragging rights. Haha.
  • Michael Bay - Saturday, January 14, 2017 - link

    I`m on Ivy Bridge/980 and have exactly zero incentive to upgrade performance-wise. Ten less seconds in winrar hardly matter.
  • fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    It's not processor performance that prompts today's upgrade, it's i/o.
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    If I could slap my i7-3770k in a Z270 motherboard I'd do it in a heartbeat. That proc is fine for what I need, but I need an upgrade to the rest of the subsystems. USB 3.1, more SATA III ports, M.2, etc.
  • Lolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    You can do that with pci expansion cards.
  • Alexvrb - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    So I was looking at the i3-7350K and wondering how well it would overclock without major voltage increases... but then I looked at the price. Cripes, that's no budget overclocker. If you're building a mid-range box and plunking down around $160 for the CPU alone, I figure what's another $60 for the i5-7600K. Or if cash is really tight, just spend a mere $20 more and get the i5-7500. Even at bone stock settings, the two extra physical cores are going to provide a LOT of extra performance in a modern application that can actually use 4 threads.
  • dakishimesan - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Agree. Same thought process I went through. In fact, the i5 7400 is only 13 dollars more than the i3-k.
  • Lolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    With cpu's around 4Ghz, there's no point in OC. It's not the same when we had bottlenecked systems using single or dual cores with sub 2.6Ghz that could OC to 3.5Ghz, the extra % of oc vs heat/power consumption reached the diminishing point.

    2cores for gaming is pathetic.
  • hapkiman - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    Looks like you better have some real good cooling with this proc. Going to get hot real fast once you start pushing it. Wonder what Intel used for thermal interface material. It's definitely not soldered.
  • ruiner5000 - Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - link

    No Battlefield, no Doom? What is this?
  • Michael Bay - Saturday, January 14, 2017 - link

    Doom is not very CPU-intensive, and Battlefield is just drek.
  • cpy - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    OMG AVX offset? What took them so long! I need AVX offset for my 4770K! That thing really mess with my OC. It feels like everytime AVX is used i need +0.1V to CPU.
  • thekdub - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Why is the 4790K "highly overclocked" in these benchmarks, while everything else appears to be running at stock speeds? I was hoping to get some insight as to where my stock 4790K stacks against this new chip as I'm on the fence about upgrading this year or waiting another generation. Instead, I'm stuck making inferences and trying to guess the difference in speed between a known variable and a vague statement of "highly overclocked".
  • Achaios - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    @OP: It is a mistake that you did not explicitly state the OC of the chips you compared.

    The only thing I am interested right now is the release pf the 1080TI, so please ANANDTECH do your best to bring us some news (preview) regarding.

    CPU releases are completely uninteresting and by-and-large meaningless to anyone on a K Sandy Bridge CPU.

    I am on a Haswell, and don't see myself upgrading before 2020. Conversely, up to 2020, I would have upgraded my GPU twice.
  • Achaios - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    "by-and-large meaningless to anyone on a K Sandy Bridge CPU OR LATER". Please consider adding an EDIT function too. :-)
  • just4U - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Yeah.. there isn't really much of a jump is there? Buying a 7700K for people already on High End I7's made in the past few years is more about ... just wanting something newer, with maybe taking advantage of what some of the newest MBs offer.. I think anyway. Speed? Pfft... you already got that..

    Now if they released a mainstream I7 that had 6 cores/12 threads in the same package, well then.. that might be something of a different story. (..shrug) intels loss.
  • Badelhas - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    "Given that Intel has no competition, it is perhaps easy to roll out a new mainstream performance champion".

    This frase sums it up. And this is why I still own a SandyBridge i5 2500K overclocked to 4.4Ghz (a 33% increase) and find no need to upgrade. Intel is not even trying. It´s just SAD.
  • Thatguy97 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    When ivy bridge came out I saw this coming
  • willis936 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Wow I can't believe it: an entire generation of CPUs that change absolutely nothing about the microarchitecture design or transistor size. Why even bother rolling out new SKUs?
  • willis936 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    This would have been the perfect generation to add eDRAM to the K series. If only AMD would put out.
  • HardwareDufus - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    This is exactly what I was thinking. Why didn't they add the eDRAM to this K-Series chip. Maybe we will see another higher clocked variant with Iris Pro.... I would buy that. Meanwhile, I'll keep using my I7-3700K CPU.
  • Vash63 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    It's mentioned in the article that Linux doesn't support Speedshift. That seems to be at odds with the p-state driver documentation on kernel.org:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cpu-freq/...

    "If the processor is capable of selecting its next P-State internally, then the driver will offload this
    responsibility to the processor (aka HWP: Hardware P-States). If not, the driver implements algorithms to select the next P-State."

    Looks like they call it HWP instead of 'Speedshift', marketing names don't often make it into the kernel. This was added in Nov 2014: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/5246361/
  • oranos - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    so basically if you have a 6700k you good to go
  • BrokenCrayons - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Or anything as old as a 2500K apparently as long as you don't have a need for some of the features included on more modern motherboards. Honestly, the last six or so years have been pretty dull ones for x86 processors.
  • iwod - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    To American viewers, ( which i expect many would be on Anandtech ), and dont know who Jerermy Clarkson is, He is a former host of UK BBC's Car / Motoring Show "Top Gear", and current host of Amazon's The Grand Tour.

    And in case you dont know the show, you should watch it :P

    P.S - Why specifically American? Because Top gear is the world most watched TV shows ( Non-Drama ) and it is popular is everywhere in the world EXCEPT America.
  • stardude82 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    ...Except it's been canceled. I hear you can watch some blowhard prattle on about rich boy toys on this little American website called Amazon.com.
  • stardude82 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Oh wait... The was a British version?
  • Manch - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    What are you on about? Top Gear was quite popular in the states among gearheads and their ilk. So popular, they made a US version which sucks.
  • fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    Manch is correct. Americans "in the know" about car stuff all know about and revere Top Gear. The American version was awful, and I haven't watched the Amazon version but heard the first episode was impressive, the others not so much. I like Jeremy Clarkson but the other two hosts made the show, IMO.
  • iwod - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    So the i7700K gets you 8% more clock speed for the same power usage. And you get roughly 10% more performance due to clock speed and slight IPC improvement.
  • silverblue - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    To be fair, even if Intel can't go any further with IPC on this architecture, extra clock speed for no extra power isn't such a bad thing. This was the optimisation step of the cadence anyway, so I don't get the hate.
  • Lolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Normally the chips should be called 6780K or 6790K, intel forgot that you can increase the SKU number when models with higher clocks appears.

    Now it's the "new 7th gen".
  • silverblue - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    I agree about the naming, though perhaps they just wanted to set their newer models apart. A 6710K (or, indeed, a 6780K) wouldn't confuse most of us.
  • Manch - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    Its basically the same as NVidia and AMD rebadging GPU's. Now Intel is doing the same thing.
  • silverblue - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    A true rebrand would do little if nothing at all for a higher number; Intel have at least made tweaks.
  • fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    Not true, with nearly every re-badge they have either increased VRAM capacity or speed, and/or increased clocks on the shaders. Re-badges suck but they have almost always offered at least tiny improvements, much like Kaby Lake.
  • Thatguy97 - Friday, January 6, 2017 - link

    The hate is that this is a complacent Intel
  • Lolimaster - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    There's 0.00% IPC improvement.
  • tvdang7 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Why didn't you compare the performance gap between generations like you guys do for the other reviews.
  • lopri - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    AVX Offset? Why isn't that a cheat?
  • 137ben - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Excellent review. This is why I love AnandTech.
  • Thatguy97 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Best joke of the day
  • Ratman6161 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    When you get around to a full blown overclocking test/review, I'm really hoping you will include the i3-7350K and not just the i7. Back in the day, it was all about buying a cheap CPU and making it perform like a more expensive one. Buying a top of the line i7 only to get a few hundred Mhz kind of takes the fun out of it.
  • negusp - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    But the 7350k is an absolutely horrid CPU to test, when you can pick up an i5 for $15 more.

    We saw this with the G3528- 2 cores makes gaming absolutely shit.
  • evilpaul666 - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Do the new Kaby Lake chips turbo on all cores to their max turbo speed? I've seen that reported one or two places.
  • pavag - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link

    Still on the same league than a decade old processor.
  • AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    1. The 2600K is only 5 years old.
    2. The 7700K is 50% faster.
  • silverblue - Thursday, January 5, 2017 - link

    There is a 20% clock difference between the two, sure, but it's a fair point.
  • fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    That isn't even close to being true. A decade ago the Q6600 was the new quad core chip, and the 7700K blows that out of the water. Unless you mean beer leagues and major leagues are both the same because they have the word league in them.
  • Vazilious - Saturday, January 7, 2017 - link

    Why test a new CPU (an officially oc'ed skylake with a few more features) on years old hardware and software? R9 290x instead of an RX 480 and GTX 980 instead of a GTX 1080? Also why use windows 7? An OS where new CPUs are not supported.
  • Jason335 - Saturday, January 7, 2017 - link

    I'm really looking forward to this: "Calculating Generational IPC Changes from Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake". I'm still running an i5-2500k clocked to 4.3ghz. I'd like to know what performance I'm leaving on the table, in addition to new tech like USB3.1, PCIe3.0, NVME, etc etc etc.
  • cheshirster - Sunday, January 8, 2017 - link

    Windows 7 and old games.
    These tests start to look outdated.
  • HerrKaLeun - Sunday, January 8, 2017 - link

    to all the people whining about the relatively small increase in performance: this is expected with an interim upgrade. Intel never promised more. Intel (or AMD) doesn't owe you anything. If you think you can make better CPUs and upgrade faster, just make them. no one stops you from creating a startup and make your own CPUs :-)
    no one in his or her right mind would buy the same CPU (i.e. going from 6700 to 7700) and expect a huge increase. This has been a known fact for years that upgrading is worthwhile after a few years.

    I just installed an i7 7700K in my rig (it replaces an i36600) and the bump is huge. At given handbrake settings I now can encode 3 instances of videos and each video takes 2-3 hours while with the i3 a single instance took 12-16 hours (i use slowest speeds to get the smallest and best video file and quality). To me the upgrade was worth the money (obviously going from i3 to i7 is noticeable when using multi-threaded apps).

    I was contemplating of getting the i5K for $100 less, but decided more threads, more cache and more clock is great.

    BTW, even when using all cores clock is at 4.33 GHz consistently, not the 4.2 GHz i though if it uses all cores. It jumps to 4.37 every once a while while working on the 3 Handbrake instances. Most reviews measure single apps, but in real life you use the PC while it works. Just using browser, watching web videos etc. adds more load that is not reflected in benchmarks. the added power really is good. With the i3 chrome or my game sometimes took 20-30% of my CPU, which slowed Handbrake noticeably down. Now those apps use not more than 5% if at all. So in real life the HT seems to help more.

    this review was great, like most of Anand's. Ian does a really great job. To all the people complaining about the article:
    - it was free to read
    - no one forced you to read it
    - you could apply to become a writer and write better articles. but soemhow it seems easier to just complain....
  • HerrKaLeun - Sunday, January 8, 2017 - link

    this needs an edit function: I do not OC (only have an H170 board). above clock speed is out of the box.
  • coachingjoy - Monday, January 9, 2017 - link

    Thanks for the work.
    Helps with buying decisions.
  • ewags - Friday, January 13, 2017 - link

    Great review, I will need to see if I can get my CPU over 5.2ghz Stable with a few tweaks that you did.
  • Infkos - Saturday, January 14, 2017 - link

    no one talks about temps problems with 7700K, only works on water cooling
  • fanofanand - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    'only works on water cooling"

    GTFO troll.
  • theVatansever - Tuesday, January 17, 2017 - link

    I think i'm the lucky one,,,without AVX offset, i'm perfectly stable at 4 cores @5000mhz @1,34V ....1.5hrs of prime95 torture test without any issue, max temp seen is 81C with liquid cooler.(average temps are around 72C)
  • hapkiman - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link

    After an opportunity dropped in my lap to get this processor for next to nothing, I got it and installed it on an MSI Z170A mobo (after a BIOS update). I'm very impressed. This is a nice processor, and an outstanding overclocker. Without even touching the voltage, I went to 4.8GHz without a sweat. With tasking and voltage adjustment, I see 5GHz is attainable. Maybe this is the new Sandy Bridge? My 6700k could not even maintain a stable 4.7GHz.
  • hapkiman - Saturday, January 21, 2017 - link

    I meant to say "tweaking" not tasking.
  • dgingeri - Thursday, January 26, 2017 - link

    So, what happened to the article "Calculating Generational IPC Changes from Sandy Bridge to Kaby Lake"? I'd really like to see that. I know that upgrading from my 4790k (at 4.8GHz) is not going to be cost effective, but I'd like to see at which point it becomes cost effective.
  • Curley - Sunday, January 29, 2017 - link

    I still haven't seen a significant performance improvement over my Core i7 990 Extreme @ 4.4GHZ to warrant an upgrade. Yes my neighbor's Core i7 4790K starts faster but the 990x still meets or beats it in most benchmarks and games.
  • maincpa77 - Friday, May 12, 2017 - link

    The best line is the first line: "The Intel Core i7-7700K is what happens when a chip company stops trying and get GTA 5 hack on http://gta5hack2017.com

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now