Intel Core-X Reviewers’ Guide: Core i7-7740X should hit 5.0GHz at 1.205V
Yesterday, we got to see the first reviews of Intel’s 10-core i9-7900X and today, the overclocking capability of their Core i7-7740X Kaby Lake-X with four cores and eight threads has been detailed.
An official reviewers’ guide for Intel Core X-series processors has surfaced on the web courtesy of VideoCardz. The guide details the overclockability of the new enthusiast chips as well as the effect of different cooling solutions on their performance.
READ ALSO: Intel’s 6C/12T Coffee Lake Specs Leaked – 4.2GHz Clock Speed, 81W TDP
Let’s first talk about the Core i7-7740X overclock potential. Based on a sample size of 100 CPUs, the i7-7740X should achieve an overclock of 5GHz with a small voltage bump of 1.25V.
This was true for up to 75% of the chips, while the remaining 24% (in worst case scenario) required 1.341V to achieve the said frequency. Some samples can hit even higher frequencies of 5.1-5.2 GHz, but that would require good cooling solutions.
The guide recommends that users should use AIO liquid cooling solutions for improved thermal performance on Core X-series chips no matter if they overclocked or not.
Below are the temperature charts for the Core i7-7740X and Core i9-7900X at stock frequencies. There are three sliders: the green slider is for air cooling, red is for the Cooler Master Liquid 240 while blue is for the Corsair H110.
Furthermore, we have the stock performance comparisons of the Core i7-7740K versus Core i7-7700K and the Core i9-7900X versus Core i7-6950X. While the performance gains for the Kaby Lake-X chip are limited, the 10-core i9 part simply crushes the Core i7-6950X which is impressive considering the former costs $700 less.
According to hardware reviewers, Intel’s board partners are busy sorting out the existing BIOS bugs and tuning the performance on daily basis. So expect to see even better performance once the platform launches in the coming week.
