System Overview & Testing Procedures
We will be installing the Core i3-7350K in our Z170 test bench. Kaby Lake processors are compatible with Z170 motherboards with the appropriate BIOS installed that adds support for these processors.
Our main test bench is comprised of the following components.
Processor: Intel Core i3-7350K / Intel Core i7-7700K / Intel Core i7-6700K
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB
Motherboard: ASUS Z170-A
Memory: 16 GB Crucial DDR4
Storage: 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K
Power: Corsair AX860i
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
Case: HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
For comparisons we will be testing against the Intel’s Core i7-5775C, i7-4790K, and i7-4770K. Since we’ve had a new architecture since Skylake we cannot test using exactly the same hardware, but our secondary test bench is very close!
Processor: Intel Core i7-5775C / i7-4790K / i7-4770K
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3GB
Motherboard: ASUS Z97-A
Memory: 16 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3
Storage: 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K
Power: Corsair AX860i
Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
Case: HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
For testing the processors the frequency will be set to auto and Intel Speedstep will be turned on. The reason we do is because most people will have this setup on their own PC. This is the default mode if you do not go into the BIOS and change anything.
Here are the specifications of all four processors we will be testing today.
Core i7-7350K: 4.2 Ghz / N/A
Core i7-7700K: 4.2 Ghz / 4.5 GHz
Core i7-6700K: 4.0 Ghz / 4.2 GHz
Core i7-5775C: 3.3 GHz / 3.7 GHz
Core i7-4790K: 4.0 GHz / 4.4 GHz
Core i7-4770K: 3.5 GHz / 3.9 GHz
** Please keep in mind that we are testing a Core i3 against Core i7 parts. The Core i3-7350K is in no way designed to compete with these parts.
Here are the tests that we will be running:
CPU Testing
AIDA64
– CPU Queen
– CPU PhotoWorxx
– CPU ZLib
– CPU AES
– CPU Hash
X264 HD Benchmark 5.0
Sisoftware Sandra
– Processor Arithmetic
– Processor Multimedia
Handbreak
– Encoding test
POV-Ray 3.7
CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
Integrated Graphics Testing
3DMark Fire Strike
3DMark Cloud Gate
Heaven Benchmark
I don’t think this is a great value. I’d suggest either saving $100 and getting a Pentium G4560 for $65, which also has hyperthreading, or spending a little more getting a proper quad core.
Pretty much every i5-7xxx and down processors have been rendered obsolete with Ryzen on the horizon anyway. Why someone would want to buy an i5, i3 or pentium right now is simply baffling, much less a dual core, even with HT. Might as well wait a month and put 30 more bucks on an AMD Ryzen 5 1400X 4c/8t or the same dollars on the 1300.
AMD shill detected. We won’t know anything for sure until release day, when the reviews come out.
Strawman logical fallacy detected.
There’s plenty of reliable data availlable yet, especially from passmark… Just search the baselines yourself on the latest version for ryzen and amd engineering sample or ryzen serials. We also saw pretty solid evidence from Cinebench R15 runs and other reliable sources… But yeah, we’ll only know for sure when the NDA lifts, altho, early evidence suggests a wait and see approach instead of a blindly buy because you’re too impatient approach.
You don’t know what a strawman is. Passmark and most synthetic benchmarks =/= real world testing or even close. Your so-called “reliable sources” are WTFTech and DGLee-esque shill fantasies.
Fine, you don’t want to discuss this rationally and just blanket deny as well as display an arrogant ignorance for the sake of protecting some cognitive dissonance, soothe yourself. 🙂