Intro
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One of the most important changes in the newest generation of Intel processors is the launch of an unlocked Core i3 CPU: the Core i3-7350K. Let’s test it and check if is it a good deal.
Recently, Intel launched the seventh generation Core i processors, codenamed Kaby Lake. At first, were launched the Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs, and soon after, the Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron models. Those processors bring small changes compared to the sixth-generation ones: new video decoder for 4K video, improved Speed Shift technology (that dynamically adjusts the CPU clock,) and support to Optane technology (which is a future kind of high performance SSDs.)
But there are two major news in this new generation: the Pentium CPU with Hyper-Threading technology, and the unlocked Core i3 CPU, the Core i3-7350K. It has two cores (four threads thanks to the Hyper-Threading technology,) 4.2 GHz clock, 4 Mib of L3 cache and a TDP of 60 W. It is manufactured under 14 nm process.
In term of price, the direct competitor of the Core i3-7350K is the Ryzen 5 1400, which we will be reviewing soon. In this test, we compared the tested CPU to the Core i5-7400 and the Core i3-7100. We also included the Core i5-7600K, the Ryzen 5 1500X, and the Ryzen 5 1600X, which are CPUs from a higher price range.
Figure 1 shows the box of the Core i3-7350K. Like other unlocked CPU from Intel, its retail version doesn’t come with a cooler.
Figure 1: the Core i3-7350K
We used a GeForce GTX 1080 video card on all tests, in order to check the CPU performance with no video card bottleneck.
Let’s compare the main specs of the reviewed CPUs in the next page.