Possible 7700K Kabylake specs released....

Caracus2k · 15 May 2016 at 22:35

As predicted not looking like the 7700K is going to offer much over the 6700K....

4c8t
Not looking like stock clocks going to much faster (may even be slower!)
Not looking like it will have the 'Iris Pro' eDram L4 memory
Minor improvements to the same design as Skylake on the same 14nm process
Improved iGPU!
Similar/ possible the same TDP
Likely similar (or worse?) overclocking

The only tangible benefits from the next Consumer lineup refresh will likely come from the new '200' series chipset (Union Point) with more PCI-E lanes, optane support etc...

Otherwise likely nothing to see here for exisiting Z170 owners running 6700K's.....

AllBodies · 15 May 2016 at 23:13

Do we know what all the improvements of Z270 (I assume it'll be called) over Z170 are?

Perfect_Chaos · 15 May 2016 at 23:52

Wonder if Cannonlake will be worth the switch for x99 users? Still no idea on IPC increase or if it will have more cores for mainstream as rumored.. still a bit early i suppose.

Aretak · 16 May 2016 at 00:26

No surprise really, since it's pretty much another stop-gap ala Devil's Canyon because the proper successor isn't ready yet. I guess it'll also fill the need for them to have an upgrade available for Z170 owners so that they can ensure Cannonlake won't work on them despite using LGA 1151, just like Broadwell only worked on Z97 boards and not Z87 ones.

AllBodies · 16 May 2016 at 03:06

Perfect_Chaos said:
Wonder if Cannonlake will be worth the switch for x99 users? Still no idea on IPC increase or if it will have more cores for mainstream as rumored.. still a bit early i suppose.

I'll be very surprised if Cannonlake is still 4 cores max. The cores will be so tiny by that point, since 10nm, that Intel will really be taking the pee.

shamus21 · 16 May 2016 at 06:54

Kabylake is a complete waste of money. Intel would be better of going into Hibernation for a few years.

rossiboy001 · 16 May 2016 at 07:27

The way this is going it looks like my 2700k 4.5 ghz for gaming still has no sucessor for the foreseable future.

Ayahuasca · 16 May 2016 at 10:25

Well they've switched from the tick tock process to a 3 stage process now, so it's no surprise.

I think the problem is many on this forum base progress off gaming performance and with the way games are designed they simply don't benefit from each new micro-architecture. DirectX 12 could make this even worse (well better for us consumers) as early benchmarks show even AMD CPU's providing similar results to Intel ones. Whereas if you look at some other apps they can benefit greatly.

Skylake showed big increases for things like emulation for example.

Freddie1980 · 16 May 2016 at 11:04

Improved iGPU.............Intel could probably get the most of that performance gain from just releasing some decent drivers. Intel’s IRIS Pro GPU’s end up having a die size bigger then AMD’s own low-mid range cards that are built on a much bigger process (such as the 7790). What a waste of time, space and money.

Caracus2k · 16 May 2016 at 11:11

AllBodies said:
Do we know what all the improvements of Z270 (I assume it'll be called) over Z170 are?

Native USB 3.1
Intel Optane Support
More PCI-E lanes

Emlyn_Dewar · 16 May 2016 at 11:44

Are they really going to call it this 7700K?
Confusing.

Caracus2k · 16 May 2016 at 13:58

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Are they really going to call it this 7700K?
Confusing.

I would imagine it will be called the 7700k keep the naming convention started with the 2700k... (with a bit of a shakeup at broadwell!)

Orangey · 16 May 2016 at 14:55

Kaby not a very auspicious product to change the naming for.

Would need a Conroe, a Sandy or somesuch. Maybe they will change it @ 7nm.

ukxenon · 18 May 2016 at 06:23

Tick tick tock cycle now is it

Mei · 18 May 2016 at 07:31

Caracus2k said:
As predicted not looking like the 7700K is going to offer much over the 6700K....

4c8t
Not looking like stock clocks going to much faster (may even be slower!)
Not looking like it will have the 'Iris Pro' eDram L4 memory
Minor improvements to the same design as Skylake on the same 14nm process
Improved iGPU!
Similar/ possible the same TDP
Likely similar (or worse?) overclocking

The only tangible benefits from the next Consumer lineup refresh will likely come from the new '200' series chipset (Union Point) with more PCI-E lanes, optane support etc...

Otherwise likely nothing to see here for exisiting Z170 owners running 6700K's.....

did i read something about thunderbolt3 built in (whatever that means)

Supernova · 18 May 2016 at 15:17

It's a "semi-tock" so it's not really supposed to be a speed bump.

DragonQ · 18 May 2016 at 15:38

MSTRBKR said:
It's a "semi-tock" so it's not really supposed to be a speed bump.

Which begs the question...what is it meant to be?

Orangey · 18 May 2016 at 17:20

DragonQ said:
Which begs the question...what is it meant to be?

A cash grab.

A certain amount of people will buy every chip they put out, plus some will buy just because it's new and they're in the market. Suppose that's also why back-to-school always has to have new products, people just wanna buy something new in the hopes it will last longer or be "better" somehow.

rogueblade · 19 May 2016 at 14:52

I'm so confused by the current CPU market. I want a modern top range CPU to go with the 1080 build I'm putting together for my first new purchase since 2009.
Now all of a sudden there's new chipsets on an old gen architecture?, so confused!

Orcvader · 19 May 2016 at 15:00

rogueblade said:
I'm so confused by the current CPU market. I want a modern top range CPU to go with the 1080 build I'm putting together for my first new purchase since 2009.
Now all of a sudden there's new chipsets on an old gen architecture?, so confused!

It's been like that with Intel's tick tock cycle which started nearly 10 years ago, new architecture -> smaller process -> new architecture etc. But due to how hard it is now to shrink the process, it's become process -> architecture -> optimization, so instead of 2 generations being based on the same architecure, it's now 3.