Intel i5-7600K Kaby Lake Engineering Sample Benchmarked

With some mobile Kaby Lake CPUs running around, it was only a matter of time before we got some desktop numbers as well. Earlier, some overclocking numbers pop up for the i7 7700K and i5 7600K. Today, we’re getting treated to some benchmarks for the i5 7600K with a whole range of full-scale tests. Keep in mind that that this chip is only an engineering sample so it might not be representative of the final product.

From the leaked CPU-Z, the i5 7600K features 4 Kaby Lake cores clocked at 3.8 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost. The chip uses Intel’s latest 14nm+ process with 6MB of L3 cache and 91W TDP. In terms of stock performance versus the i5 6600K, the Kaby Lake chip managed to pull ahead by about 6% overall in single threaded tasks and 9% in multi-threaded workloads. For gaming, the boost was a much smaller 4%.

Even with these numbers, Kaby Lake is the disappointment we’ve been waiting for. Compared to Skylake, there are no architecture tweaks, just a refined process which improves efficiency. All of the performance gains likely come from the higher stock clocks, 4.2 GHz vs 3.9 GHz. The 7600K is clocked about 7% faster which explains the 6% gains in single-threaded performance. Once we remove the clock speed advantage, performance is very likely the same. The one area of improvement though is the multithreaded workload where the 7600K may be able to better hold its boost clocks due to the refined process.

Even though Kaby Lake appears to be a bit underwhelming, it should be better than Skylake or at worst on par. The real game changers are in mobile where the increased efficiency will surely be welcome. With Cannon Lake set to use the same architecture as well, we may have to wait another two years before Intel will release something spectacular again.  Perhaps AMD’s Zen will provide Intel an incentive to push their limits again.