2017-02-07

Intel is planning to release new Kaby Lake CPUs in response to AMDs upcoming Ryzen CPUs. The chip giant is reportedly surprised by the performance of the Ryzen lineup and will release higher clocked Kaby Lake CPUs to not be ‘humiliated’ by AMD.



The information comes from the well respected French website Canard PC (via) who reports that Intel considers the new AMD Ryzen CPU as a ‘serious threat’. Canard PC writes, “Intel’s communication department is now trying to avoid at all costs the humiliation of a Ryzen CPU with performance comparable to a Core i7 6900K (€1200) , but for a much lower price.”

In response to AMDs Ryzen CPUs, Intel would be planning to release two new CPUs of its Kaby Lake generation, a Core i7 and a Core i5.

The Core i7 would be the  7740K that is reportedly clocked at 4.3 Ghz, has 8MB L3 cache and a TDP of 100 W. This CPU has a clock speed that is 100 Mhz higher than the Core i7 7700K and in return the TDP is 9 watts higher.

The Core i5 is the 7640K that has 4 cores running at 4.0 Ghz and comes with 6MB L3 cache. The TDP of this CPU would climb above the 100 watts. Canard PC initially reported this CPU would have Hyper Threading but isn’t sure about this anymore. According to the website it would be the first time a desktop Core i5 supports Hyper Threading, a feature that normally differentiates between an desktop i5 and i7. On laptops Hyper Threading on a Core i5 is common.

Intel might release even more Kaby Lake CPUs complementing these models, depending on the final test results of the Ryzen CPUs, Canard PC writes. Major customers of the chip giant are reportedly testing the Core i5 7640K and Core i7 7740K but Intel doesn’t guarantee them they will be sold. The main reason is that validation of the new CPU models is time consuming and Intel wants to be able to respond within days in case AMD’s Ryzen CPUs perform better than expected.

Especially Intel’s clock speed per core is still higher which means that its CPUs will perform better on applications that are not able to take advantage of the 6 and 8 cores some of the AMD Ryzen CPUs will provide. Up to 4 cores Intel will still be faster and it seems the company will underline that to respond to AMD with higher clocked Kaby Lake processors.

Canard PC is sceptical on how afraid Intel should be. The website is unsure if the entire Ryzen lineup will really perform as well as some expect. AMD might be looking for a ‘WOW’ effect with its 8 core Ryzen CPUs, but it might only be able to sell a handful of them. The rest of the range might perform a lot less as AMD might have issues with its yield. The company might need to lower the clock speed of cores to make sure they work reliable and even disable cores that don’t function well.

The 4 core and 6 core Ryzen CPUs are already 8 core CPUs where AMD has disabled defective cores, according to Canard PC. The website concludes that in case AMD provides journalists only with the high end 8 core 3.6 / 4.0 Ghz CPUs, and doesn’t provide 4 core variants, the company might have issues with the performance of the rest of the range of Ryzen CPUs.

The post “Intel to release new Kaby Lake CPUs to not be ‘humiliated’ by AMD’s upcoming Ryzen CPUs” appeared first on Myce.com.

Show more