At CES 2017, overclockers managed to push Intel's latest Core i7-7700K processor to 7 GHz on liquid nitrogen cooling. Aside from being power hungry and hotter compared to Skylake, Intel's Kaby Lake processors feature better overclocking potential, with many chips hitting 5 GHz with ease.
Intel Core i7-7700K Pushed To 7 GHz Across All Cores On LN2
The overclocking feat was achieved on different motherboards, namely the ASUS ROG Maximus IX APEX and the ASRock Z270 Taichi. Both are enthusiast-tier motherboards and ensure that users running them will benefit from higher overclocking speeds. The Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7700K was overclocked to 7030 MHz or 7 GHz if we round up the numbers. A CPU Multiplier of 70 was used with a FSB of 100 MHz.
Intel Core i7-7700K – The Fastest Core i7 Kaby Lake Processor:
The Intel Core i7-7700K processor is the fastest Core i7 chip in the Kaby Lake lineup. This chip features a quad core, hyper-threaded design. The chip is based on the latest 14nm+ process node which delivers improved efficiency and performance on the existing 14nm FinFET technology. The clock speeds are rated 4.2 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost. The processor packs 8 MB of L3 cache and has a TDP of 91W. The Core i7-7700K CPU will retail at $305 US.
The voltage shown in the CPU-Z screenshot is not accurate since overclocks of this magnitude require over 1.5V. The chip was overclocked across all four cores which puts the previous 7 GHz record of Kaby Lake to rest. The previous record was achieved by overclocker "Splave" who pushed the chip to the same frequency under LN2 at 2.00V. But in that record, the chip only had 2 cores enabled whereas the new overclock pushed all four cores to 7.00 GHz. The highest frequency achieved so far with the chip is 7.348 GHz but that was also done with just one of the cores enabled.
Temperatures of minus 183 degrees (Celsius) were achieved during the overclocking spree. You can see some of the pictures from the session below (Image Credits: Cowcotland):
Intel Core i3-7350K Does 5 GHz Easily on Liquid Cooling
Intel also announced their first, overclocking friendly, Core i3 CPU after many years with the Kaby Lake lineup. The Core i3-7350K was set up at Intel's booth, clocking at 5 GHz with really good temperatures under liquid cooling (Corsair H110i GTX). The CPU's overclock was captured by Legit Reviews who also gave it a test with the Cinebench R15 benchmark.
The chip being a dual core posted a score of 514cb in multi-threaded and 204cb in single-threaded performance tests. The chip was overclocked to 5.0 GHz on an MSI Z270 Mini-ITX motherboard and a voltage supply of 1.44V.
Intel Core i3-7350K – The Fastest Core i3 Kaby Lake Processor:
The Intel Core i3-7350K processor is the fastest Core i3 chip in the Kaby Lake lineup. This chip features a dual core, multi-threaded design. The chip is based on the latest 14nm+ process node which delivers improved efficiency and performance on the existing 14nm FinFET technology. The clock speeds are rated 4.0 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost. The processor packs 4 MB of L3 cache and will have a TDP around 91W. The Core i3-7350K CPU will retail for $157 US.
Intel Kaby Lake processors are some of the highest clocked chips released by Chipzilla. They are optimized to operate at higher frequencies and the new process improvements allow for 5 GHz+ overclocks without any effort. For the full round-up of Kaby Lake processors and Z270 motherboards, visit this page.
