The end of Intel's tick-to-beat production rhythm means that Kaby Lake has become the third architecture based on a 14nm processor. Starting with Broadwell (5th generation, “tick”), the manufacturer introduced the new Skylake microarchitecture (6th generation, “so”), which was optimized in the 7th generation. Improving energy efficiency and increasing frequency was achieved due to the less strained layout of transistors. Intel has released a large range of new Kaby Lake processors, ranging from 15 KB and 15 W mobile KBL-U and 45 W KBL-H to KBL-S workstation models with estimated power consumption of 35–91 W. There are 3 overclocked options, including i3.
Kabi Lake
The first official launch of Kaby Lake took place in September 2016 and included 6 mobile processors designed for installation in premium laptops and mini-PCs. They showed good results, and in early 2017, Intel introduced more than 25 new models. The main feature of Kaby Lake processors is support for Optane Memory and 200-series chipsets. In addition, the Gen9 graphics were updated by Main10 and other low-power video playback systems, and the circuitry was corrected to improve the voltage frequency curve.
Kaby Lake processor overview
Intel identifies its product lines by segments Y, U, H, and S. Recent changes in the naming scheme have made it difficult to determine which segment the chip belongs to if you do not know the TDP or core circuitry.
The Y series, using the Kaby Lake Pentium, Core m3, Core i5 / i7 and Core i5 / i7 vPro nomenclature, is a 2- and 4-core hyper-threading processors with an estimated thermal power of 4.5 W, which are aimed at small and light mobile PC. Such a low power consumption is achieved thanks to the ultra-low base frequency. This allows you to install batteries of smaller capacity, providing low weight and long battery life.
The U series consumes 28 and 15 watts, has 2 cores with hyper-threading, but with a much higher clock frequency. Includes Kaby Lake Pentium, Celeron, Core Ń–3 / Ń–7 processors. They are often cheaper than the Y series, as they are not limited by stringent voltage and frequency requirements and are used in premium gaming laptops. Some processors are equipped with an additional 64 or 128 MB eDRAM chip, which serves as a DRAM buffer with main memory and affects the graphics speed.
H Series Chips have an estimated power consumption of 45 watts and provide maximum performance for mobile devices. Intel promotes them under the VR Ready brand, which indicates their use in virtual reality systems. Available in various combinations of components and performance.
S Series is designed for desktops. Unremarkable. It was released 3 modifications of Core i7 with 4 Kaby Lake processor cores and hyper-threading, one of which allows overclocking, and the other is low power. Several 4-core i5s in similar versions and 2-core i3 chips are also available.
In the new KBL-S lineup, one can single out the possibility of overclocking the Core i3-7350K, a 2-core processor with hyperthreading, an estimated thermal power of 60 W, a base frequency of 4.2 GHz (without turbo mode) and a custom multiplier. This was a response to the requests of enthusiasts who thus achieve CPU performance corresponding to higher-end devices.
Speed ​​Shift v2
One of the new features of Skylake was the Speed ​​Shift feature. If the driver is correct, the system may refuse to control the turbo mode of the processor in favor of the processor itself. Using an internal metric collection combined with access to system sensors, the CPU can adjust the frequency with greater accuracy and faster than the OS. The goal of Speed ​​Shift is to allow the system to respond faster to performance requests (for example, interacting with the touch screen or browsing the web), reduce latency and improve user experience. Therefore, when the operating system is limited by the predefined P-state parameters, a processor with Speed ​​Shift support with the right driver is able to almost continuously change the CPU frequency factors in a wide range of values.
The first iteration of Speed ​​Shift reduced the peak frequency set-up time from 100 to 30 ms. The only limitation was the driver, which is now included with Windows 10 and comes by default.
With the advent of the new architecture, the hardware control of Speed ​​Shift has improved. Intel did not change the name of the technology, but the improvements were significant. The driver has not changed, so it works with all modifications of Speed ​​Shift, but the processor can now reach the maximum frequency in 10-15 ms, and not in 30.
Optical memory
One of the goals of the memory industry is to create something with DRAM speed, but more resilient so that data is saved even when there is no power. DRAM uses energy to update data, but is a major source of data movement software. Most of the speedup of software depends on the speed of access to memory or the ability to have data closer to the kernel when necessary, so having a large, close, non-volatile memory can increase performance and reduce power consumption. Most of the decade was spent on its creation. Intel (and Micron) officially announced its decision, 3D XPoint, a year ago, but before that it had not been officially announced.
Media features
Although in terms of functionality, Intel Kaby Lake is not very different from Skylake, the graphics show obvious improvements. As in the case of CPU cores, the 14nm + process has increased the frequency and improved GPU performance, but perhaps more impressive changes are the updated multimedia capabilities. The basic architecture of the Gen9 GPU has not changed, but Intel has revised the video processing units, adding functionality and improving efficiency.
4K hardware acceleration
The main difference in the Kaby Lake-U / Y media engine is the availability of full hardware acceleration for encoding and decoding 4K-videos in HEVC Main10 format. This contrasts with Skylake, which supports 4k p30, but does so using a hybrid process that distributes the load between CPUs, media processors, and GPU shader cores. As a result, Kaby Lake not only processes more HEVC profiles, but only spends a fraction of the power on it with much more bandwidth. Also, the new architecture has implemented 8-bit encoding and 8/10-bit decoding of the VP9 codec from Google. Skylake offered a hybrid decoding codec that did not provide sufficient energy efficiency. The new HEVC Main10 and VP9 hardware acceleration circuitry is part of the MFX unit. The video quality engine has received support for HDR and Wide Color Gamut.
According to Intel, Kaby Lake U / Y is capable of processing up to 6 4Cr30 codecs AVC and HEVC simultaneously. HEVC decoding support is designed for 4Kr60 up to 120 Mbps, which is necessary for playing premium content and UHD Blu-ray. Thanks to process improvements, even 4.5-watt Y chips are able to process HEVC 4Kp30 in real time. Thus, in the U and Y series, one of the main complaints about Skylake was resolved: the lack of hardware-accelerated decoding of 4Kp60 HEVC Main10. There are other improvements that provide a more satisfying multimedia experience for consumers.
Connectivity options
Kaby Lake U / Y's graphics flow is the same as Skylake's. This means that iGPU serves up to 3 displays at a time.
One of the disappointing aspects of Skylake that has not been fixed in Kaby Lake-U / Y is the lack of its own HDMI 2.0 port with HDCP 2.2 support. Intel advocates adding LSPCon to DP 1.2. This approach has been used on several motherboards and even on mini PCs such as the Skull Canyon NUC (NUC6i7KYK) and ASRock Beebox-S.
Chipsets
The new PCH controller hubs are paired with LGA1151 sockets and thus support both Skylake and Kaby Lake. Chips of the 100 series, such as the Z170, are also compatible with the new processors after updating the BIOS.
Today, Intel chipsets are pretty predictable. The Z-series is focused on multi-graphic chips and overclocking, H is distinguished by the absence of the latter, Q is intended for platforms with vPro support and B is focused on cheaper solutions.
There are also 3 mobile chipsets with similar differences, including the Xeon kit in the CM238, which allows the use of the new E3-1500 v6 processors.
Compatible boards
Motherboards for Kaby Lake processors are ASUS Maximus IX Code, GIGABYTE Z270X, Supermicro C7Z270-CG, ASRock Z270, MSI Z270, ECS Z270H4-I. New controllers appeared on them, including USB 3.1 10 Gb / s ASMedia ASM2142, which uses two PCIe 3.0 lanes to support up to 2 ports. Previously, only 1 PCIe 3.0 slot was used for this.
The Realtek ALC1220 audio controller has also been updated: there is an output of 120 dBA and an input of 113 dBA. This should ensure the best measurable quality. The network connection is still made by the Intel I219-V Gigabit Ethernet controller. The big change here should be the introduction of the multi-gigabyte Aquantia 5G / 2.5G AQC107. The new 10-Gb / s interface USB 3.1 on the front panel in the MSI Z270 Gaming M7. It is currently activated through ASM2142, using two PCIe bands to provide one USB 3.1.
Technically, all motherboards equipped with Kaby Lake should be able to support Optane Memory. LED backlighting also plays a large role in the 200 series motherboards: only a few models in each price category are deprived of it.
Performance
As expected, there is no gain in speed. According to user reviews, the 3-GHz Kaby Lake i7-7700K processor works similarly to the Core i7-6700K with a clock frequency of 3 GHz (with hyper-threading disabled). The only difference is memory support. If Skylake is compatible with DDR4-2133, then Kaby Lake is compatible with DDR4-2400, but this slightly affects almost all benchmarks.
Power consumption
One of the main advantages of the Kaby Lake processor is the same frequency at lower power or higher at the same power compared to Skylake. The i7-7700K supports a turbo mode of 4.5 GHz with a thermal power of 91 watts. For all tested Kaby Lake processors, even with manual overclocking, the consumption is close to the calculated one, although usually the CPU supplier significantly overestimates the voltage required for stable operation of the chip.
Overclocking
According to user reviews, their perception of the increase in clock frequency in Kaby Lake has changed thanks to the new AVX Offset feature, which is located in the BIOS of each Z270 motherboard. AVX instructions are known to damage overclocking, reducing stability and making it difficult to move code without AVX. The user can now apply an offset (e.g. -10x), which will reduce the multiplier when the AVX command is encountered. This means that when overclocking the Kaby Lake processor to 4.8 GHz with an AVX offset of 8x, the AVX command will execute at 4.0 GHz, generating less heat and maintaining system stability.
According to users, the 4.8 GHz AVX frequency is easily achievable even with a reasonable voltage. The i7-7700K reaches 4.9 GHz with an offset of AVX -10, and the i5-7600K reaches 5.0 GHz, even when AVX is turned on.
By and large, overclocking the i7-7700K from 4.2 to 4.8 GHz does not give a practical advantage. The difference in 600 MHz corresponds to a 13-14% increase in performance, which is not so much. However, given the voltage profile of the chips, the 4.5 GHz frequency provides good temperatures and voltages, still surpassing the i7-4790K or i7-6600K.
Test results
According to user reviews, a comparison of Kaby Lake processors confirms that the Core i7-7700K wins in almost every test (except for a few, where the i7-5775C is still better due to 128 MB eDRAM).
Core i5-7600K works almost the same, except for scenarios with a small number of threads (for example, when ray tracing), but when performing everyday tasks, the processor is certainly not inferior in anything. Core i5-7600K due to the lack of growth І is essentially the base i5-6600K, except for a few additional megahertz. The processor accelerates well - its temperature is much better than the i7-7700K, but it is nothing more unusual.
The elephant in the china shop, however, is the Core i3-7350K. At a price of $ 159, it is only 11 dollars from Core i5-7400, which costs $ 170, but has 2 two full cores, albeit at a lower frequency (3 GHz versus 4.2 GHz).
Is Intel's new architecture a new milestone?
For the most part, Kaby Lake does not offer big changes. Optane memory support is a plus, but otherwise it's just a shift in the power and efficiency curve. The energy consumed at 3.0 GHz last year now yields 3.3 GHz, which means saving time on work or saving electricity. Speed ​​Shift v2 is a really nice feature, but it is limited to users of Windows 10. Of great interest is the set of new controllers (ALC1220, E2500, Aquantia). Optimization architecture is not surprising, but provides a 10% increase in efficiency.