It seems like the NDA that Intel has in place for their forthcoming Kaby Lake architecture CPUs is in virtual tatters. UK tech writers Bit-Tech have followed Tom’s Hardware and published a pretty exhaustive preview article focused on the Intel Core i7 7700k. As well running benchmarks and giving a thorough overview of the new platform, they also took the time to push the new chip to see exactly how well it overclocks. What they found using an early sample and a Z170 board was that the Core i7 7700K managed to reach 5.1GHz pulling 1.44v. Using a Corsair H105 CPU cooler the chip reached temperatures in excess of 90 degrees C.

“…we managed to get our sample to 5.1GHz - the best result we've seen for an age and even better than we managed with Sandy Bridge. Sure, this did need a hefty 1.44V and temperatures were edging into the 90s using Prime95's small FFTs test for stress testing with a Corsair H105 CPU cooler, but there is a glimmer of hope here that we may be dealing with a rather decent overclocker when it comes to Kaby Lake. Indeed, with a 300MHz higher boost speed out the gate starters and an improved manufacturing process, you'd kind of hope that there was some extra headroom anyway.”

Of course these preliminary findings are far from conclusive. We’re not exactly sure what motherboard was used during testing, but for sure it will have been a Z170 chipset board. Although these are compatible, the BIOSes will not yet be optimized for performance. The chip they used is also not final retail silicon, a fact that may also affect the findings.

Catch the full preview article from Bit-Tech here.