Intel Core i7 7700K may hit the 5 GHz mark

Intel’s Kaby Lake is the first part to the new three stage development process which replaces the previous “Tick-Tock” approach. The new third stage is optimization, and it seems that Intel did good here. An Intel Core i7 7700K  has been spotted running at up to 4.9 GHz.

Just 100 MHz from the [UPDATE: not so] elusive 5 GHz mark that has been eyed by overclockers around the world, this is really quite good news. And what makes it even more interesting is that this is done on a retail unit of the i7 7700K, not a engineering sample!

It is also worth noting that the overclocker Luning Duan has managed to push his Core i7 7700K to 4.9 GHz, with all four cores and HyperThreading active, and it was stable enough to run Prime95 too. All at a stunningly low voltage of 1.264V! Temperatures are a little high though, with spikes up to 95ºC, but since the cooling system was not revealed, we can hope that he did it on air, and that those on water cooling loops might be able to go further.

Are you an overclocker and does this piece of news entice you to make the leap to a Kaby Lake CPU? Let us know in the comments section!

Pokdepinion: While enthusiasts “had” to overclock their systems back in the past for a performance boost, recent CPUs are already insanely powerful. Overclocking is more of a sport nowadays, but that has not stopped the hardcore from pursuing ever higher clocks and benchmark scores.