Intel Core i3-7350K
$TBC (ESTIMATED ~$270) | WWW.INTEL.COM.AU The new K on the block. “Coming in with two cores and four threads, the Core i3-7350K fills a gap within Intel’s offerings to the enthusiast market segment.”
This is the CPU many enthusiasts have been wanting for a few generations now. We were teased with the Pentium Anniversary Edition G3258. It was a playful little piece of processing goodness that was a hoot to overclock and play around with, but useful in any decent computing sense for little more than home theatre PC duties. Finally, we now have a K SKU Core i3 to tinker with and enjoy.
Coming in with two cores and four threads, the Core i3-7350K fills a gap within Intel’s offerings to the enthusiast market segment. This is good news for many who have enjoyed overclocking for longer than the K SKUs have existed, still fondly remembering obtaining significant performance increases from CPUs that were otherwise overlooked by the general computing public with preference for the more expensive higher-clocked offerings.
With little in the scope of comparison, we are left to draw on similarities. Starting with the aforementioned Pentium Anniversary Edition G3258 that clocked in at 3.2GHz and featuring 3MB of cache, the 7350K is a beefed up piece rocking an impressive 4.2GHz clock speed and 4MB cache. When comparing with the Core i5-7600K, it’s an intriguing evaluation as the 7350K possesses two-thirds the cache memory of its higher spec Core i5 sibling — 4MB vs 6MB. However, sporting the same 4.2GHz frequency under load, the two CPUs align closer than enthusiasts may have expected.
Further looking at spec, it begins to make more sense to perceive this “little K” as half of a 7700K. This perspective comes into view when comparing central features, for example 4MB cache vs 8MB, two cores vs four cores and four threads vs eight threads. Not surprisingly, the Core