Fresh Intel Performance Leak Suggests Dual-Core Kaby Lake i3 Could Best Last Gen’s Quad-Core i5

The launch of Intel’s Kaby Lake desktop processors is due to happen soon, so it’s no surprise that leaks have begun to hit the Web (much to Intel’s chagrin, we’d imagine). Well, for everyone holding out for a Kaby Lake upgrade, there’s some good news: these chips look to be fast, even managing to beat out last gen’s higher-tiered chips.

In this particular case, we’re talking about the dual-core Core i3-7350K, a chip that’s interesting for a handful of reasons. At the forefront, this is an i3 with a “K” moniker, meaning that it’s designed for overclocking (unless Intel changed the meaning in between launches, which seems unlikely). Second, it scores about 10,000 even using GeekBench 4.0.3, which is the same score that last-gen’s quad-core Core i5-6400 earned.

Credit: WCCFTech

But wait… there’s more. The single-thread performance of Kaby Lake sits just over 5K, whereas the i5-6400 couldn’t muster much more than 3.6K.

Does this mean that Intel’s Kaby Lake chips are so incredibly advanced that single-thread performance increases a staggering 40%? No – of course not. While the Kaby Lake microarchitecture will undeniably offer gains on its own, the i5-6400 Turbo boosts to 3.2GHz, whereas this i3-7350K adds an entire 1GHz to that, pegging 4.2GHz.

A clock boost doesn’t make the gains less interesting, though. We’re dealing with a Core i3 here, some of Intel’s most affordable chips, and yet this chip will hit over 4GHz. That’s a mammoth gain over the previous generation. If that’s not intriguing enough, bear in mind this: WCCFTech notes that this i3-7350K is spec’d at 4GHz, but Turbo boosts to 4.2GHz. No current-gen i3 supports Turbo, so that in itself is notable.

Kaby Lake desktop chips are expected to launch during CES in January, and it will be followed-up in late 2017 / early 2018 (speculated) with Coffee Lake, another extension of the 14nm ecosystem. Finally, if all goes well, we’ll finally see the 10nm Cannonlake not long after.