Intel Core i5-7600K Kaby Lake Processor Review

CPU Benchmarks – Ashes of the Singularity, Cinebench, Handbrake, WPrime and WinRAR

Ashes of the Singularity

Before I get into the benchmarks, it’s important to clarify that I’ve not been provided with a previous generation i5-6600K and this doesn’t look like changing anytime soon. While this isn’t ideal for a comparative purpose, it’s what I had at my disposal. Ashes of the Singularity’s CPU benchmark is extremely demanding and takes full advantage of higher-core CPUs. Despite the lack of hyperthreading, the i7-7600K at default values was able to record a commendable result and just edge the i7-4770K. Once overclocked, the performance increases by a good amount but it’s not enough to make up for the basic 4-core/4-thread arrangement.

Cinebench R15

In Cinebench R15, the i5-7600K achieves a commendable multi-threaded result but it’s some way behind the i7-7700K. On a more positive note, the single-threaded performance is good and akin to the i7-6700K. Once overclocked to a hefty 5.1GHz, the processor’s single-threaded performance isn’t too adrift of the i7-7700K and the multi-threaded score closes the gap to the i7-6700K.

Handbrake

The i5-7600K isn’t really tailored towards video workloads and lingers behind other higher-end CPUs from recent years. Saying that, the conversion is completed in a reasonable time and you could probably use the CPU for video tasks providing it’s not on a regular basis. After the overclock was applied, the i5-7600K obtained a much better FPS score and even finished ahead of an i7-4770K running at 4.8GHz. This is a major feat and it’s interesting to see such a huge performance gain via overclocking.

WPrime

The i5-7600K at stock settings isn’t able to contend with the i7-4770K and suffers quite badly due to the lack of hyperthreading. To be fair, it’s still a great result for a 4-core/4-thread CPU and the higher Turbo frequency undoubtedly gives it a performance boost over its predecessor. Overclocking the CPU to 5.1GHz brings it ahead of the i7-4770K and much closer to the i7-6700K.

WinRAR

The i5-7600K is much slower than even the i7-4770K when dealing with WinRAR compression and the situation doesn’t improve at 5.1GHz. This is somewhat surprisingly and I would have expected the CPU exhibit a more substantial performance improvement after overclocking. Rest assured, I ran the benchmarks multiple times and experienced a similar situation.