Someone did a no-no and posted an early review of a seventh-generation Intel CPU-November 2024-www.yitit.com

　　Image used with permission by copyright holderChinese website PCOnline broke Intel’s non-disclosure agreement regarding the upcoming seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors for desktops by publishing an early review of the Core i5-7600K. There are plenty of charts and benchmarks to look at including hardware details provided by CPU-Z, photos of the actual processor, results from 3DMark, and more. This chip, along with its other desktop siblings, are not expected to be available until early January, so consider this tease as an early Christmas gift from PCOnline.

　　For starters, here is the upcoming processor compared to the two older generations that are also based on 14nm process technology:

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	Core i5-7600K	Core i5-6600K	Core i5-5675C
Architecture	Kaby Lake-S	Skylake	Broadwell
Interface type	LGA 1151	LGA 1151	LGA 1150
Cores/threads	4/4	4/4	4/4
Base clock speed	3.8GHz	3.5GHz	3.1GHz
Max clock speed	4.2GHz	3.9GHz	3.6GHz
Memory support	DDR3L-1600 DDR4-2133	DDR3L-1600 DDR4-2133	DDR3-1600
Integrated graphics	HD 630	HD 530	Iris Pro 6200
Execution units	24	24	48
Level 3 cache	6MB	6MB	4MB
Level 4 cache	n/a	n/a	128MB eDRAM
TDP	91 watts	91 watts	65 watts

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　　As the chart shows, the new seventh-generation chip provides faster base and boost clock speeds while keeping the same power requirement. As expected, the new chip also received an upgrade in the integrated graphics department.

　　Here is a chart showing the 3DMark benchmark scores of the upcoming processor’s integrated graphics component compared to the last generation. What you will see is a slight improvement in the graphics department, but do not expect it to replace your discrete graphics card. Here are the numbers:

	HD 630	HD 530
Fire Strike	1252	1237
Time Spy	379	384
Sky Diver	4561	4429
Cloud Gate	10435	10355

　　Now here is a chart detailing the speed differences between the seventh-generation processor and the previous-generation model:

	Core i5-7600K	Core i5-6600K
Base clock speed	3.8GHz	3.5GHz
Max single-core speed	4.2GHz	3.9GHz
Max dual-core speed	4.1GHz	3.8GHz
Max three-core speed	4.1GHz	3.7GHz
Max four-core speed	4.0GHz	3.6GHz

　　Rather than pin a bunch of benchmark screenshots here, take a look at numbers using applications like CPU-Z, WinRar, Photoshop CS6, and a few others.

	Core i5-7600K	Core i5-6600K
Fritz Chess Benchmark 4.32	12972	12038
wPrime 2.05	255	276
CPU-Z 1.77.0	8310/2133	7697/1983
WinRAR	66	78
Photoshop CS6	90	95
TMPGEnc 4.7.7	52	57
Cinbench R15.0	690	646

　　Ultimately, the site concludes that the real star of the seventh-generation Kaby Lake rollout is the 200-series chipset for motherboards launching alongside the new desktop processors. This chipset supports Intel’s 3D XPoint memory architecture, Thunderbolt 3, 24 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes, six SATA 3 ports, 10 USB 3.0 ports, and more.

　　The good news with the 200-series chipset is that motherboards based on this hardware will be backwards compatible with sixth-generation Intel processors. Thus, if the new desktop processor lineup speeds do not justify the cost of a CPU upgrade, then consumers may still benefit from swapping out the motherboard for one based on Intel’s new chipset.

　　We expect to see Intel officially reveal its seventh-generation desktop processor lineup during CES 2017 in early January. Until then, you will continue to see leaks and broken NDAs ruin Intel’s big New Year’s surprise.