Intel Kaby Lake-X Review: Core i7-7740X & Core i5-7640X

[Julio Franco]

Along with preparing a series of Skylake-X processors, Intel's counter to Ryzen includes a Kaby Lake-X lineup consisting of the Core i5-7640X, which is basically a renamed 7600K, and the Core i7-7740X, a 7700K in disguise. Or are they?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1442-intel-kaby-lake-x/

 

[pawel04]

Thank you for an honest review.

 

[Vito05]

So this new Intel lineup perform worse than the previous one and require new MBO. Pass...

 

[CaptainTom]

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

 

[Brock Kane]

So, this is the future of Intel? Really??

Ryzen's looking better every minute!

Maybe Intel needs to clean house of Engineers!

 

[OcelotRex]

So, this is the future of Intel? Really??

Ryzen's looking better every minute!

Maybe Intel needs to clean house of Engineers!

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

People buying these want the platform but cannot afford the more expensive CPUs. They will upgrade later when they can. It's an expensive stop gap.

 

[Steve]

So, this is the future of Intel? Really??

Ryzen's looking better every minute!

Maybe Intel needs to clean house of Engineers!

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

People buying these want the platform but cannot afford the more expensive CPUs. They will upgrade later when they can. It's an expensive stop gap.

Any reason why they want the platform? A $300-ish CPU seems like an extremely expensive stopgap, who does that? I mean throw away a $340 CPU because that's what you'll be doing, the re-sale on these chips will be horrible.

 

[Adhmuz]

Glad I skipped to the conclusion on this article, what a waste of time from Intel, I don't even know why you bothered giving it a Pros/Cons summary, the Pro isn't even a Pro... Someone ****ed up over at Intel it seems, to think these CPUs have any place on the X299 platform for one, and to release CPUs less efficient then the previous generation is absolutely mind boggling. Hell they can't even fully utilize the platform...

 

[amstech]

Explanation Attempt By Dan The Dinosaur:

"It does not appear that the 7740 and 7640 are a counter to anything. If you ask me they are left over/forgotten chips Intel needed to get rid off so they slapped a name on them. They've already countered Ryzen with their best stuff so after the dust settled they remembered they had these laying around, and needed a way to move these chips."

 

[madboyv1]

I guess the 40 score was because "hey, at least it actually powers on/works" give away?

But wow, what a scathing review, and other reviewers are none too pleased about the chips either.

 

[dirtyferret]

These ryzen and Skylake reviews make my 2500k look better each day...

 

[merikafyeah]

And to add insult to injury, I've heard that the VRM temps on many X299 boards get excessively hot, indicating once more that these chips are just mini furnaces and the platform as a whole is simply a rushed hackjob by a now seemingly desperate Intel.

 

[OcelotRex]

Any reason why they want the platform? A $300-ish CPU seems like an extremely expensive stopgap, who does that? I mean throw away a $340 CPU because that's what you'll be doing, the re-sale on these chips will be horrible.

I totally agree. TBH I read that justification in another review (cannot remember if it was ARS' or someone else's) and to me it's the only thing that makes sense with the i5 and i7.

 

[hood6558]

My thinking on KL-X was that the reason for their inclusion on X299 was to be the best overclocking chips, the more robust HEDT platform allowing more headroom/higher TDP. Other reviewers have explored this and reported a high of 5.2 GHz (stable), so it's only good for 100-200 MHz over the mainstream parts - not really worth it for the extra $100 the board will cost. Technically I guess these ARE the highest clocking CPUs in the world, on air/water. No mention of overclocking was made in this article, and it could've at least provided one "pro" at the end, instead of "Kaby Lake-X offers no apparent advantages over Kaby Lake and actually performs worse in every category." That's not a "pro", and makes this CPU seem worse than it actually is. Yellow journalism, anyone? Not that I would buy one of these anyway, I just prefer to hear the whole story, not the click bait - "Intel's Facepalm moment" - seriously, Mr Walton?

 

[techseven]

The 7740X is getting good reviews on Tweaktown and Guru3D, I wonder why?

Gudru3D:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_core_i7_7740x_processor_review,25.html

Tweaktown:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8252/intel-core-i7-7740x-series-kaby-lake-cpu-review/index.html

 

[Evernessince]

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

The problem is these Kaby lake x shouldn't even be on this platform. The cost of the chipset just doesn't justify these lower end CPUs. Why Intel decided to keep their higher end CPUs 1 generation behind in IPC is beyond me but right now it's stinging them bad. They essentially just left the door WIDE open for AMD

 

[Puiu]

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

The problem is these Kaby lake x shouldn't even be on this platform. The cost of the chipset just doesn't justify these lower end CPUs. Why Intel decided to keep their higher end CPUs 1 generation behind in IPC is beyond me but right now it's stinging them bad. They essentially just left the door WIDE open for AMD

they are using an older gen for their high end architecture because it's much more mature. in theory it should provide better stability and reliability which is very important for workstations. but they kinda blew this by releasing the platform very early and there are a lot of bios/driver bugs (kinda like how Ryzen had some issues at launch)
when buying a workstation most companies/pros don't look at bleeding edge technology.

 

[Puiu]

My thinking on KL-X was that the reason for their inclusion on X299 was to be the best overclocking chips, the more robust HEDT platform allowing more headroom/higher TDP. Other reviewers have explored this and reported a high of 5.2 GHz (stable), so it's only good for 100-200 MHz over the mainstream parts - not really worth it for the extra $100 the board will cost. Technically I guess these ARE the highest clocking CPUs in the world, on air/water. No mention of overclocking was made in this article, and it could've at least provided one "pro" at the end, instead of "Kaby Lake-X offers no apparent advantages over Kaby Lake and actually performs worse in every category." That's not a "pro", and makes this CPU seem worse than it actually is. Yellow journalism, anyone? Not that I would buy one of these anyway, I just prefer to hear the whole story, not the click bait - "Intel's Facepalm moment" - seriously, Mr Walton?

"makes this CPU seem worse than it actually is" - but it really is worse than what you want it to be. it's an HEDT CPU that has none of the HEDT features that you would expect from it.

 

[Phr3d]

Humbly offer:
Intel wants to profit from its stock shares in AMD

 

[Steve]

My thinking on KL-X was that the reason for their inclusion on X299 was to be the best overclocking chips, the more robust HEDT platform allowing more headroom/higher TDP. Other reviewers have explored this and reported a high of 5.2 GHz (stable), so it's only good for 100-200 MHz over the mainstream parts - not really worth it for the extra $100 the board will cost. Technically I guess these ARE the highest clocking CPUs in the world, on air/water. No mention of overclocking was made in this article, and it could've at least provided one "pro" at the end, instead of "Kaby Lake-X offers no apparent advantages over Kaby Lake and actually performs worse in every category." That's not a "pro", and makes this CPU seem worse than it actually is. Yellow journalism, anyone? Not that I would buy one of these anyway, I just prefer to hear the whole story, not the click bait - "Intel's Facepalm moment" - seriously, Mr Walton?

IT.... IS.... THE.... SAME..... PHYSICAL.... CHIP.... repeat after me

 

[Evernessince]

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

The problem is these Kaby lake x shouldn't even be on this platform. The cost of the chipset just doesn't justify these lower end CPUs. Why Intel decided to keep their higher end CPUs 1 generation behind in IPC is beyond me but right now it's stinging them bad. They essentially just left the door WIDE open for AMD

they are using an older gen for their high end architecture because it's much more mature. in theory it should provide better stability and reliability which is very important for workstations. but they kinda blew this by releasing the platform very early and there are a lot of bios/driver bugs (kinda like how Ryzen had some issues at launch)
when buying a workstation most companies/pros don't look at bleeding edge technology.

If that was Intel's plan, it's not a good one. It's like coming out and saying all your other CPUs aren't stable enough for professionals, all the while AMD has advertised Ryzen to those same professionals. Ryzen's memory issues are pretty inconsequential for most professional tasks but at least they can and are being solved. Nothing Intel can do about the confusing x299 platform.

 

[DAOWAce]

This X299 line should've never happened.

 

[Puiu]

If that was Intel's plan, it's not a good one. It's like coming out and saying all your other CPUs aren't stable enough for professionals, all the while AMD has advertised Ryzen to those same professionals. Ryzen's memory issues are pretty inconsequential for most professional tasks but at least they can and are being solved. Nothing Intel can do about the confusing x299 platform.

confusing? yes
unfixable... hard to tell. adjusting prices to better compete with AMD can help it a lot in the long run. they still have better performance core for core.

I'm more interested on how they will solve the heat issues with the larger chips that have yet to launch. maybe they will solder those ones? if not then those chips will run at much lower clocks and will be very hard to OC. AMD's design (multiple 8 core clusters connected with the infinity fabric) seems much easier to cool as it spreads the heat on a much larger package, it's also not localised in just one spot and the chips are also soldered.

 

[Jyrkz]

My thinking on KL-X was that the reason for their inclusion on X299 was to be the best overclocking chips, the more robust HEDT platform allowing more headroom/higher TDP. Other reviewers have explored this and reported a high of 5.2 GHz (stable), so it's only good for 100-200 MHz over the mainstream parts - not really worth it for the extra $100 the board will cost. Technically I guess these ARE the highest clocking CPUs in the world, on air/water. No mention of overclocking was made in this article, and it could've at least provided one "pro" at the end, instead of "Kaby Lake-X offers no apparent advantages over Kaby Lake and actually performs worse in every category." That's not a "pro", and makes this CPU seem worse than it actually is. Yellow journalism, anyone? Not that I would buy one of these anyway, I just prefer to hear the whole story, not the click bait - "Intel's Facepalm moment" - seriously, Mr Walton?

Haha Intel fan boy xD
KL-x overCLocking is a joke if you dont use LCS.

 

[PCFREAK]

That i5 should be $150, and the i7 should be $250 to make up for the more expensive mobo's (They can't fully use).

Even then they would be stupid considering the slightly worse performance compared to the now-proven LGA 1151 platform.

You are able to spend quite a bit for a high-end 1151 MoBo too.