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Will Kabylake i7 be hex core?

Tbh any kind of multitasking, like having many applications open, playing games at the same time etc.. means your PC won't bog down with more cores.

Plus Cannonlake has indeed been rumoured to go 6 core for mainstream, so we'll see what happens.

Yes people bang on about the mainstream 6700k having more gaming performance but it's not like its a massive difference anyway, it would be unnoticeable in most situations. More powerful GPU would make a much bigger difference.
 
I think we're definitely in the age of IPC increases with reduced heat and power requirements being the pinnacle of design for consumer desktops, big chips are there if you want them, but the mainstream isn't about that. Skylake shows what you can do with 4 cores and I can't see anything to change that, even if AMD bring an 8 core Zen to the table, I highly doubt it will offer anything worthwhile to gamers over an Intel 4 core.
 
Intel's mainstream line are MOBILE processors repackaged and sold for the desktop, two cores is still really the mainstream there and four cores is still massively overkill so you'll be waiting a long time for six cores.

If you want more than four cores then you are on totally the wrong platform, Intel's Enthusiast line is obviously where you should be.

Intel mainstream - processors developed with mobile devices in mind.
Intel enthusiast - processors developed with server systems in mind.

PC gamers and enthusiasts are a tiny market in the grand scheme of things so don't expect processors to be developed especially for us.
 
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Frustrating thing tho is that the high-end of the mainstream line of i7s is fair bit faster clock-for-clock to the high-end of the enthusiast line atm.
 
They can rush mobile based processors out because unlike the server line they aren't used in mission critical situations, mainstream/mobile is like the testing ground for the server line.
 
Orangey said:
Why are people so obsessed with Z line going hex? :confused:

Cheapest E line isn't much more, you can buy-in there if you want hex.
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Think it's people wanting maximum single-thread performance and clockspeed without having to sacrifice multi-thread.

Also the Z270 is going to have Optane support, whereas X99 won't.
 
beany_bot said:
That's a bit rubbish really. Games now starting to use more than 4 cores. Really they should be hex.
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If you need more than 4 cores go i7 4 core/8 threads. If you want more than that go Enthusiast line which doesn't cost a huge amount more.

An I7 cpu can drive a serious amount of GPU power.

We have been hearing for ever how more cores will be mainstream but I would think that is still some way off. Even if Zen turns out to be the silicon messiah I doubt it will change the face of PC gaming.
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
More powerful GPU would make a much bigger difference.
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Exactly, so spend less on CPU (get a I5/I7 Skylake) and spend more on a GPU............

X99 is much more expensive, for zero benefit for gamers. More expensive CPU, Motherboard, plus more expensive ram, since you need 4 DIMMS to enable quad channel on x99 (vs 2 DIMMS for Skylake).
 
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Dave2150 said:
Exactly, so spend less on CPU (get a I5/I7 Skylake) and spend more on a GPU............

X99 is much more expensive, for zero benefit for gamers. More expensive CPU, Motherboard, plus more expensive ram, since you need 4 DIMMS to enable quad channel on x99 (vs 2 DIMMS for Skylake).
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The extra 4 DIMMS for the most part is hardly more expensive than buying 2, I've seen them around equal pricing or not much more.

Anyway I'm fine with my 5820k at least until Cannonlake or i may not even bother with that, maybe wait for Icelake since it will be a new architecture and see if the IPC increase will be large.
 
https://benchlife.info/skylake-x-and-kaby-lake-x-confirm-with-lga-2066-and-2017-q3-07172016/

Still 4 core and Skylake-X also still 6,8 and 10 core.

Its all very disappointing to be honest. All they are doing is shifting the 'K' CPUs to the HEDT platform. Skylake-X is still 4 channel but Kabylake-X will be dual channel.

Only changes appear to be the 40 lane CPUs becoming 44 and official DDR4-2666 support. Apart from a reduction in total cache its the same as. Glad I went 5960x now as this is for Q3 2017 release so essentially there's nothing much of interest for the next 2 years.
 
Intel won't be giving the mainstream cpus a big boost anytime soon, the updates have been tiny since the move to 4 core, almost as if Intel realised they gave too much and crippled future sales.
 
Like I've said just wait until after Cannon Lake by then DX12 and Vulcan will be mainstream and I'd imagine everything will be much better for 6 cores.

smilertoo said:
Intel won't be giving the mainstream cpus a big boost anytime soon, the updates have been tiny since the move to 4 core, almost as if Intel realised they gave too much and crippled future sales.
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Intel are crippling sales for most people that are on Sandy onward as the performance upgrade just isn't there all you need to do is overclock a 2600k to 5GHZ and you have something that is about the same/slightly less as 6700k.
 
When Intel were originally introducing hex cores, they were said to be mulling over creating a new named category, "i9".

Probably best that they didn't because the implication of i9 products always being "better" than i7 wouldn't really have held for a bunch of use cases.
 
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