Intel Core i5-7600K Kaby Lake Engineering Sample Benchmarked – 10% Faster Than Core i5-6600K

The Intel Core i5-7600K processor is yet to launch yet several Chinese sites have already acquired this chip for testing. The new Core i5-7600K processor is part of the Kaby Lake family which launches at CES 2017.

Intel Core i5-7600K Kaby Lake CPU Benchmarked - 10% Boost Over Skylake Core i5-6600K

We didn't expected to see benchmarks leak out this early but I guess it was a given at this point. Yesterday, we saw some overclock numbers of the Core i7-7700K and Core i5-7600K processors. Today, we are going in to full blown benchmarks between the fastest Core i5 chips from Kaby Lake and Skylake generations. Do note that the chip being tested here is an engineering sample so final results could be better, depending on overall optimization.

First up are the specifications for the Core i5-7600K. The Intel Core i5-7600K processor is the fastest Core i5 chip in the Kaby Lake lineup. This chip features a quad core, non-multi-threaded design. The chip is based on the latest 14nm Plus process node which delivers improved efficiency and performance on the existing 14nm FinFET technology. The clock speeds are rated 3.8 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost. The processor packs 6 MB of L3 cache and has a TDP of 91W. The chip will be available around the $250 US range.

Intel Core i5-7600K CPUz (Image Credits: Expreview):

Intel 7th Generation 'Kaby Lake' Desktop Lineup

SKU Name	Cores/Threads	Core Clock	Boost Clock	L3 Cache	TDP	Socket	Price
Core i7-7700K	4/8	4.2 GHz	4.5 GHz	8 MB	91W	LGA1151	$339 US
Core i7-7700	4/8	3.6 GHz	4.2 GHz	8 MB	65W	LGA1151	$303 US
Core i7-7700T	4/8	2.9 GHz	3.8 GHz	8 MB	35W	LGA1151	$303 US
Core i5-7600K	4/4	3.8 GHz	4.2 GHz	6 MB	91W	LGA1151	$242 US
Core i5-7600	4/4	3.5 GHz	4.1 GHz	6 MB	65W	LGA1151	$213 US
Core i5-7600T	4/4	2.8 GHz	3.7 GHz	6 MB	35W	LGA1151	$213 US
Core i5-7500	4/4	3.4 GHz	3.8 GHz	6 MB	65W	LGA1151	$192 US
Core i5-7500T	4/4	2.7 GHz	3.3 GHz	6 MB	35W	LGA1151	$192 US
Core i5-7400	4/4	3.0 GHz	3.5 GHz	6 MB	65W	LGA1151	$182 US
Core i5-7400T	4/4	2.4 GHz	3.0 GHz	6 MB	35W	LGA1151	$182 US
Core i3-7350K	2/4	4.2 GHz	N/A	4 MB	60W	LGA 1151	$168 US
Core i3-7320	2/4	4.1 GHz	N/A	4 MB	TBD	LGA 1151	$149 US
Core i3-7300	2/4	4.0 GHz	N/A	4 MB	51W	LGA1151	$138 US
Core i3-7300T	2/4	3.5 GHz	N/A	4 MB	35W	LGA1151	$138 US
Core i3-7100	2/4	3.9 GHz	N/A	4 MB	51W	LGA 1151	$117 US
Core i3-7100T	2/4	3.4 GHz	N/A	4 MB	35W	LGA 1151	$117 US
Pentium G4620	2/4	3.7 GHz	N/A	3 MB	51W	LGA1151	$86 US
Pentium G4600	2/4	3.6 GHz	N/A	3 MB	51W	LGA 1151	$75 US
Pentium G4560	2/4	3.5 GHz	N/A	3MB	54W	LGA 1151	$64 US
Pentium G3950	2/2	3.0 GHz	N/A	2 MB	35W	LGA1151	$52 US
Pentium G3930	2/2	2.9 GHz	N/A	2 MB	35W	LGA1151	$42 US

The Core i5-7600K Testing Platform

The folks over at Expreview got a pretty decent sample of the Core i5-7600K. They tested both Skylake and Kaby Lake chips on the same setup. This is because Kaby Lake is compatible with current generation, 100-series motherboards. The motherboard used was a ASRock Z170 OC Formula which was coupled with 8 GB of G.Skill DDR4 memory clocked at 2133 MHz. The graphics card used was a reference GeForce GTX 1070 card.

There are two parts of the benchmarks, the first is the comparison between the Core i5-7600K and Core i5-6600K while the second focuses on the Core i7-6700K vs Core i5-7600K. So let's take a look at the numbers.

Intel Core i5-7600K vs Core i5-6600K

Both chips were tested on stock configuration and clock speeds. The Core i5-7600K bested the Skylake chip in all possible ways. The end result was 6.14% faster single-threaded performance and 9.12% faster multi-thread performance. In gaming, the Core i5-7600K was around 4% faster. You can take a look at the benchmarks in the table below:

Intel Core i5-7600K vs Core i7-6700K

The results for the Skylake chip versus the Kaby Lake processor should be no surprise. The Core i7-6700K is a multi-threaded processor and synthetic benchmarks do show big gains with a multi-threaded chip. Hence we are looking at a 18% slower performance in multi-threaded but 2% faster performance in single-threaded CPU benchmarks. The Core i5-7600K is clocked at the same frequency as the Core i7-6700K and delivers slightly better performance due to IPC and process improvements.

In gaming, the chip saw a 6% drop in performance compared to Core i7-6700K. The games that saw the biggest drop were GTA V and 3DMark Firestrike performance test. Both of these are known to tax the CPU hard and take some advantage of multi-threading.

If these benchmarks are not enough, PCOnline also posted some of there own results along with package shots of several other Kaby Lake chips which we detailed previously.

Intel Core i5-7600K SuperPI and AIDA64 Results:

Intel Kaby Lake 7th Gen Core Processors Shots (Image Credits: PCOnline):

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