The Intel Core i3-7350K (60W) Review: Almost a Core i7-2600K
by Ian Cutress on February 3, 2017 8:00 AM ESTLegacy and Synthetic Tests
At AnandTech, I’ve taken somewhat of a dim view to pure synthetic tests, as they fail to be relatable. Nonetheless, our benchmark database spans to a time when that is all we had! We take a few of these tests for a pin with the latest hardware.
Cinebench R10
The R10 version of Cinebench is one of our oldest benchmarks, with data going back more than a few generations. The benchmark is similar to that of the newest R15 version, albeit with a simpler render target and a different strategy for multithreading.
With high frequency in tow, the Core i3-7350K makes its mark.
When more threads come to play, the Core i5-7400 and Core i7-2600K battle it out in terms of four cores and IPC vs hyperthreading. The Core i3-7350K sits around ~25% behind.
Cinebench R11.5
CB11.5 has been popular for many years as a performance test, using easy to read and compare numbers that aren’t in the 1000s. We run the benchmark in an automated fashion three times in single-thread and multi-thread mode and take the average of the results.
Similar to CB10, the single thread results show that a 4.2 GHz Kaby Lake is nothing to be sniffed at. In the multithreaded test, CB11.5 is more able to leverage the hyperthreads, showing that a Core i7-2600K will run rings around the low end Kaby i5, but is bested by the higher frequency Kaby i5-K. The Core i3 still has that dual core deficit.
7-zip
As an open source compression/decompression tool, 7-zip is easy to test and features a built-in benchmark to measure performance. As a utility, similar to WinRAR, high thread counts, frequency and UPC typically win the day here.
The difference between the i3-7350K and the i5-7400 shows that 7-zip prefers cores over threads, but the Core i7-2600K results show it can use both to good effect, even on older microarchitectures, scoring almost double the i3-7350K.
POV-Ray
Ray-tracing is a typical multithreaded test, with each ray being a potential thread in its own right ensuring that a workload can scale in complexity easily. This lends itself to cores, frequency and IPC: the more, the better.
POV-Ray is a benchmark that is usually touted as liking high IPC, high frequency and more threads. The i7-2600K, despite having double the resources of the Core i3-7350K, is only 30% ahead.
AES via TrueCrypt
Despite TrueCrypt no longer being maintained, the final version incorporates a good test to measure different encryption methodologies as well as encryption combinations. When TrueCrypt was in full swing, the introduction of AES accelerated hardware dialed the performance up a notch, however most of the processors (save the Pentiums/Celerons) now support this and get good speed. The built-in TrueCrypt test does a mass encryption on in-memory data, giving results in GB/s.
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Ian Cutress - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
Next test bed update will be on W10. I keep getting mixed reactions recently from W10/W7/Linux users on this front - some want to see W10 poweeeeeer, others want default. But for DX12 it'll have to change over.CaedenV - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
Bench-marking in win10 is... well... difficult. The OS has too many automatic features, so it is hard to get consistent results. You still get better overall performance... but not consistent performance. Win7 is gloriously dumb and gives very clear numbers to make very easy comparisons.Flunk - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
It's a bit sad that you can compare any CPU from 2011 to one from 2017 and have them match up like this. In the 90's a CPU that was 6 years newer was many times faster than the older one. Is it lack of competition? Or have we just hit the wall with silicon chip technology?Ro_Ja - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
Back in the days it was all about higher clock speed = faster. Nowadays it's a bit complex for me :\BrokenCrayons - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
It's probably a combination of both, but I'd go out on a limb and say it's mostly due to technology and not so much market forces. Intel's primary competition for new processor models really ends up being its own prior generations It the company wants to land sales, it needs to offer a compelling incentive to upgrade.There's also Intel's efforts to reduce TDP over successive generations (something the company would probably not do were there more credible competitive forces in the market). Those reductions are probably a side effect of a mobile-first perspective in modern CPU design, but there's something nice about buying a reasonably power 35W desktop processor and not having to worry about copper-pipe festooned tower coolers with 120mm fans strapped on them just to keep your chip happy. If I were to build a new desktop, I'd entertain a T-series part before exploring any other option.
StrangerGuy - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
It's funny we got big perf/watt increases over the past few years in CPUs and GPUs, yet somehow everyone are still buying massive overkill 650W+ PSUs where most systems would struggle to even draw 1/3 of the PSU rated wattage at load.I'm pretty confident that an undervolted i5 7400 and GTX 1060 (60W @ 1600MHz according to THG) would be able to draw <100W at the wall in a normal gaming load with an efficient enough PSU...
fanofanand - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
Because MOAR POWER and marketing. Seriously, they sell the high power PSUs for a LOT more than the lower powered PSUs, it's going to take consumers buying the 300-450W psu's en masse before the manufacturers adjust. Your theoretical operates under false assumptions however. The 1060 boosts up well beyond 1600 and will consume far more than 60 watts, and there are efficiency losses in the PSU and throughout your system. Go ahead and try to run a 1060 and an undervolted i5, see what happens.t.s - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
He said normal gaming. His number is quite possible --with good mobo, ssd, no optical drive.fanofanand - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
No, it's not. For typical gaming the 1060 consumes between 90-120 watts. So please do tell me how his system with a 100 watt GPU is going to consume less than 100 watts with a CPU, mobo, RAM, etc.?hybrid2d4x4 - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link
As a point of reference, I have a 1060 in a i5 4670 system running a 400W Platinum PSU. All stock clocks, 1 SSD, 1 HDD. Peak power in games measured at the wall is ~200W (180-200 depending on which AAA game), so I doubt <100W is doable.But agree with the commentary about how overkill most PSUs are.