What are the major differences of a new family of Intel processors? And what are the key specifications that we should choose in between these processors? Also what motherboards are suitable for these processors. the arrival of the new Intel LGA 2066 platform is somewhat confusing as we have two families of different processors. On the one hand, the Skylake-X and on the other the Kaby Lake-X. On the first and we had a review a few days ago, so we now turn our attention to the seconds one.
Main differences between Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X
Kaby Lake-X is the processor from the new platform HEDT of Intel, the LGA 2066. Specifically, there are two Kaby Lake-X processors, the Core i5 7640X and the Core i7 7740X. These processors are very different from Skylake-X and belong to a lower range. It has been a rather strange move by Intel to launch processors for enthusiast platform. The idea of this new platform is especially with the Core i5 7640X. That is especially an “inexpensive” entry to the LGA 2066 platform. That makes it the most potent and cheap processor.
With fewer PCIe lanes and more limited in memory
Core i5 7640X and Core i7 7740X are still modified versions of the Intel Core i5 7600K and Core i7 7700K. That has been adapted to work on the LGA 2066 socket. As they include significant limitations such as a Dual Chanel memory controller. With only 16 PCI Express lanes, the Skylake-X have memory Quad Chanel has up to 44 PCI Express lanes. The latter causes the user to find some PCI Express or M.2 slots disabled on some boards when mounting a Kaby Lake-X chip. For example, in the case of Gigabyte X299 cards, these include five PCI-Express slots. Of which three come from the CPU and the other two originate from the motherboard chipset.
Caches less optimized and without Turbo Boost Max 3.0
In the cache, there are also big differences. Skylake-X has increased the cache L2 to 1 MB per core since it has changed the way of working of this reducing the L3 and growing the L2. This theoretically benefits the programs that make calculations Very intensive and cache dependent. This modification has not come in Kaby Lake-X, and the L2 cache is still 256 KB.
Kaby Lake-X also does not have Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology exclusive to the Skylake-X. It allows detecting the two cores of higher quality for use in applications that do not take advantage of all cores of the processor. Thanks to this the new processor achieve higher peak operating frequencies and therefore have better performance. Games are applications that can benefit from the use of high-speed cores. So Skylake-X has a significant advantage over Kaby Lake-X.
Sky Lake-X or Kaby Lake-X, Which one is better?
Finally, we note that the Core i5 7640X and Core i7 7740X have an overclocking potential slightly higher than Core i5 7600K and Core i7 7700K. That is due in part to the fact that they come with with a more polished and optimized 14 nm process. And, On the other hand with the absence of integrated graphs, this processor achieves a better voltage use. With these Kaby Lake-X, the 5 GHz is almost achievable with overclocking, and if you are lucky, you can reach up to 5.2 GHz with this processor technology.
Costly Motherboard
The biggest drawback of Core i5 7640X, Core i7 7740X, Core i5 7600K and Core i7 7700K is that the motherboards of the former are quite more expensive. While for about 120 euros we can have an enough good Z270 plate, in the case of X299 the cheapest can go to 250-300 euros.