Intel’s New 7th Generation ‘Kaby Lake’ Processor Leaked, Core i7-7700K Leads the Pack And Can Pump Up to 4.5 GHz
Intel’s 7th generation Kaby Lake desktop processor family has been leaked by Chinese sources, confirming the various SKUs of the lineup. The new 7th generation Intel Processor, Core i7-7700K is said to be so powerful that you wont need a separate graphics card on your PC/laptop to run 4K videos or games.
Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich revealed the Kaby Lake processors during the IDF 2016 Developer conference and demonstrated its capabilities on a Dell XPS laptop. According to Intel, the Kaby Lake processors will feature an optimized architecture that will be designed with the building blocks of Skylake that came before it. The Kaby Lake processors will be featured on multiple platforms but our focus today is on the mainstream desktop chips.
Why are Kaby Lake processors so different from Sky Lake ?
Intel’s 7th generation processors are said to handle 4K graphics without any glitch. Earlier Intel lineup including Sky Lake failed to deliver ultra high gaming or videography performances like Nvidia Titan X or Radeon Pro SSD.
A graphics processing unit (GPU), also occasionally called visual processing unit (VPU), is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations and game consoles.
Kaby Lake is Intel’s codename for the upcoming 14-nanometer successor to the Skylake microarchitecture. It will feature a new graphics architecture to improve performance in 3D graphics and 4K video playback.
Intel’s 7th generation Kaby Lake processors will have two variants. The high-end version is Core i7-7700K and can boost up to to 4.5 GHz. According to sources Intel is looking to design two different variants of i7 chips. One would be designed for the HEDT market while the others will be designed for the mainstream market. The HEDT lineup is known as Kaby Lake-X and will be featured on the LGA 2066 along with the Skylake-X processors.
The mainstream lineup which is internally known as Kaby Lake-S will be featured on the LGA 1151 socket. While this socket is the same as Skylake before it, the change it chipset (200-series) would not allow compatibility with older generation (100-series) motherboards.
The best part of the Intel’s 7th gen Core processor is that it can swiftly handle the 4K GoPro videos as was seen when Krzanich demoed Blizzard’s Overwatch game without any need for a GPU.
Kaby Lake will add native USB 3.1 Generation 2 Ports, whereas Skylake motherboards require a third-party add-on chip in order to provide USB 3.1 (10 Gbit/s) ports. Kaby Lake will add native HDCP 2.2 support, along with full fixed function HEVC Main10/10-bit and VP9 10-bit hardware video decoding.
Intel was supposed to launch Cannon Lake processors before Kaby Lake this year. However, Intel honchos seems to change their mind and went ahead with Kaby Lake. The 10nm-based Cannon Lake was scheduled to launch at 2017.
Kaby Lake devices should start arriving this fall, so stay tuned for more on when you can get in on Intel’s next generation of powerful processors.
Here is a comparison between Intel’s Kaby Lake with AMD’s Summit Ridge
| WCCFTech | AMD Summit Ridge | Intel Kaby Lake |
|---|---|---|
| Product Segment | Mainstream Desktop PCs | Mainstream Desktop PCs |
| Product Architecture | x86 Zen (+40% IPC compared to Excavator) | 7th Gen Kaby Lake (+10% IPC compared to Skylake) |
| Process Node | 14nm | 14nm |
| Max CPU Cores/Threads | 8/16 | 4/8 |
| GPU Architecture | N/A | Next Gen HD Graphics |
| TDP | Up to 95W | Up to 95W |
| Socket | AM4 | LGA 1151 |
| PCH | Promontory | Z270 |
| Memory Support | DDR4 | DDR4 |
| Launch | Q1 2017 | Q4 2016 |
A processor from 2008 and probably earlier can handle processing of a 4K STREAM without a hitch, this article is nothing but clickbait hype by an author who knows nothing about tech. They showed you a stream of a game which is NOTHING like playing a game at 4K settings which not even the newest GTX 1080 can handle to produce a steady 60FPS on AAA titles maxed out. Even the GTX Titan XP has some trouble doing full 60FPS on max settings at 4K.