Hardware Intel Core i7-7700K, Core i5-7600K (Kaby Lake) and Z270 Chipset Review

Is it worth upgrading for performance gains if you have a 2500k or newer Intel quad core? No.

Is it worth upgrading for the better feature set? Depends if you want the new toys you won't have on something old like a 2500k system like for example M.2 Nvme support, USB 3.1 Type-C Gen2, being allowed to use 4K Netflix and so on, if you are not going to use them, then no.

But if you are going to upgrade anyway due to old hardware failing / for the sake of it then may as well opt for the newest tech.

Just my opinion of course.

 

Can you please retest these cpus at 4.8Ghz and do all future tests at 4.8Ghz to give a fair comparison against the older cpu shown tested at 4.8Ghz.
Giving it a slightly higher overclock and saying it's a bit faster is pointless.

 

Actual lol

Not worth upgrading from 2500K? I would say so. Not from Haswell or newer, certainly, but 2xxx series is PCI-E 2.0 still. Only Ivy had Gen 3. And it's MBs only had 2x SATA 6G. Upgrade from Ivy would be 'consideration' at this point. But both I'd wait to see what AMD offers.

Does anyone really only consider upgrading on CPU alone? I can't say so. You're missing out on M.2 support at a minimum, let alone all the new BIOS features, much better fan controls, add-in software like free Clone/RAMdrive that's actually quite useful (on ROG/Strix) and two DIMMs of DDR4 gives you 16GB - more than enough. (Yea DDR4 is expensive now though :/)

Vault-Tec - yes to both ways afaik. But you'll unlikely get the best OCs from KB/Z170 combo.

For gaming notebooks - KB+GTX 10 series is a killer combo. Fast peak clock speeds on H series / plenty of U series has eDRAM/Iris and even 1050 Ti's are solid FHD capable GPUs. Throw this and an M.2 into a 15.6" and you've got a great thin and light.

 

Are you actually going to use those new toys though?
Because if not might as well wait for even newer toys.

 

get a pcie4x card for M2 on an older board?

 

You can do that, but unless you have a Z77 or newer board (might even work on Z68) then you are going to struggle to boot from it without modifying your BIOS/UEFI.

The whole point of it, for me, is for it to be a rapid boot device and store a few games that really benefit from fast loading times (big maps for example) - that's what mine does.

 

my Z68 can boot with it from uefi - but then again it does support pcie3 and IB

on a related note I love arstechnica`s headline

 

what I know Z77 has no support for Nvme

 

Skylake to Kabylake is nothing more than a Bloomfield C1 to D0 stepping change - enhancing OC and bringing down heat. Intel are well and truly stagnated.

Also, Z68 does NOT support NVMe out of the box, nor does X79. I fail to see why people go for AHCI devices in M.2 slots when it's still a slow, backwards technology. NVMe is what belongs in there.

 

Question about RAM slots and overclocking (to reach the assumed norm of 4.8-5.1 ghz nothing extreme)

Does skylake and/or Kaby allow for this even with 4 slots full.

Reason I ask - if I buy 16gb of DDR4 (2x8gb) and want to upgrade to 32GB later, can I just use two additional (identical ofc) DIMMS and expect my overclock to remain (for sake or discussion lets say CPU does 5ghz prime stable @ 1,35v but I run at 4.8Ghz @ 1.3v

Looking ahead - do we know if (Ry)Zen OC's with 4 DIMMS?

 

Intel has completely gone off the rails with regards to the enthusiast market. Nearly half the bloody die space is taken up by a feature that's immediately turned off.

Socket 2011 is stupid (and expensive), so Intel really needs to figure out a new socket that dumps the GPU and associated output pins in favor of 8 cores, 24 PCIe lanes (for sli/xfire or stupidly fast NVMe SSDs), 64GB max memory and toss in 5 gigabit ethernet, just for fun. Wrap it all up into an entry level server and enthusiast platform, and you have a winner.

 

Mav, the CPU OC is not affected by the amount of RAM you put in the board. I've not seen this issue at all with Skylake, so Kaby won't be any different.

You'd need to adjust the IMC voltage accordingly when adding in more sticks, as most manufacturers overshoot the amount required by something fierce (0.2v+ in some cases). Other than that, it's as simple as adding in modules and making sure it's stable.

I haven't got any gear here to be able to tell you 100%, but that is my suspicion.

 

The only driver here to change for me is the 4K video support - I've a 6700K in my 'HTPC'. The thing is - the TV does most of the streaming lark in 4K HDR anyway, and the only thing I'll use it for is UHD Blu-ray. I also don't use the onboard GPU in the chip, so I've now realised that an 'upgrade' to a 7700K is pointless. Don't you just love 'stream of consciousness' posts?

Sorry everyone. I do agree however that if you're looking to upgrade now, the 7xxx series chips are a no-brainer. If I were still rocking a Z77-or-earlier chipset, I'd be all over the upgrade for NVMe alone. Dat speed tho.

From a moderately recent platform? I'd probably not bother.

EDIT: @pb2000 - why is S2011 stupid?

 

Does this work with just a pci-e card in Z77? I assume you can't boot from it though?

Sent from my SM-N915FY using Tapatalk

 

It's a server socket, designed for 2/4 way systems running large numbers of VMs and/or large parallel workflows. Sure, it's fun to do this but confining it to a single socket is a crime, not to mention the $1700 price tag for the 6950X.

 

so was Skt 1366... don't recall anyone whinging about that...

 

Socket 2011 was a replacement for socket 1567 and intel, for whatever reason decided not to create a new variant of 1366 (I think it was planned, but canceled somewhere along the line). Socket 2011 takes everything that was overkill about desktop 1366 and adds more of it (4-way system, 4 channel memory, 40 PCIe lans).

 

Intel launching a new dedicated "enthusiast" (but not too enthusiast) platform seems even more silly than having a one-way s2011 system.

The fact they even bother with X99 seems a bit of a gift to the enthusiast user tbh.

 

It's a matter of opinion - if your needs are met by a socket 1366 or 2011 system, then it's not a crime to use it. Now whether or not it's a "crime" to use a 6950X in a gaming rig is a different matter entirely, but still subjective.

And I'd strongly disagree that 1366 was ever overkill; it was a nice upgrade from the very best Core2 platforms and amazingly it is still able to hold its own in the multi-core performance stakes today. If I was to upgrade now (I probably will be in the summer) I'd be looking first at X99 because it meets my needs in a way that "non-enthusiast" systems don't. For me, going from six cores/twelve threads to, for example, a 7700K would be of virtually no benefit given my workflow. Conversely, going to a 5960X or any of a number of LGA2011-3 Xeons with 10, 12 etc. cores would be a tremendous upgrade.

 

It's fun. It's daft. It's overkill for gaming, yes, but - if you use your rig for, say Pro Tools or something like that, it's also eminently useable. I know the 5960X (and indeed the 6950X) are mad CPUs, but they're cracking.

This is just it - it's for 'enthusiasts'. Those of us who like things a bit daft. Since when was overkill stupid? This is Bit-Tech.

Plus - I use my machine for audio-processing and recording when my Mac Mini isn't up to snuff...