Rahul Sharma (Editor)

Kaby Lake

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Product code
  
80677

L2 cache
  
256 KiB per core

L1 cache
  
64 KiB per core

L3 cache
  
Up to 2 MiB per core, shared

Created
  
October 2016 (mobile) January 2017 (desktop)

Transistors
  
14 nm (Tri-Gate) transistors

Kaby Lake is the codename used by Intel for a processor microarchitecture which was announced on August 30, 2016. Like the preceding Skylake, Kaby Lake is produced using a 14 nanometer manufacturing process technology. Breaking with Intel's previous "tick-tock" manufacturing and design model, Kaby Lake represents the optimized step of the newer "process-architecture-optimization" model. Kaby Lake began shipping to manufacturers and OEMs in the second quarter of 2016, and mobile chips have started shipping while Kaby Lake (desktop) chips were officially launched on January 3, 2017.

Contents

Skylake was anticipated to be succeeded by the 10 nanometer Cannonlake, but it was announced on July 16, 2015, that Cannonlake has been delayed until the second half of 2017. Kaby Lake is the first Intel platform to lack official driver support for versions of Windows older than Windows 10.

Development history

As with previous Intel processors (such as the 8088, Banias, Dothan, Conroe, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Skylake), Kaby Lake's development was led by Intel's Israeli team, based out of Haifa. Intel Israel Development Centers manager Ran Senderovitz said: "When we started out on the project, we were only thinking about basic improvements from the previous generation. But we began looking at things differently with a lot of innovation and determination and we achieved major improvements." He added that the performance of the seventh generation chips was improved by 12% for applications and 19% for Internet use compared with the sixth generation chips. Third-party benchmarks do not confirm these percentages as far as gaming is concerned.

Features

Built on an improved 14 nm process (14FF+), Kaby Lake features faster CPU clock speeds, clock speed changes, and higher Turbo frequencies. Beyond these process and clock speed changes, little of the CPU architecture has changed from Skylake, resulting in identical IPC (Instructions Per Clock).

Kaby Lake features a new graphics architecture to improve performance in 3D graphics and 4K video playback. It will add native HDCP 2.2 support, along with fixed function decode of H.264, HEVC Main and Main10/10-bit, and VP9 10-bit and 8-bit video. Hardware encode is supported for H.264, HEVC Main10/10-bit, and VP9 8-bit video. VP9 10-bit encode is not supported in hardware.

Kaby Lake is the first Core architecture to support HyperThreading for the Pentium-branded desktop CPU SKU. Kaby Lake also features the first overclocking-enabled i3-branded CPU.

Architecture changes compared to Skylake

Kaby Lake features the same CPU core and performance per MHz as Skylake. Features specific to Kaby Lake include:

  • Increased clock speeds across all CPUs models (increased by up to 300 MHz)
  • Faster clock speed changes (improved Speed Shift technology): it takes less time for the CPU to transition from one frequency to another, e.g. from a low power state to a high performance state - consequently this may bring an increase in performance and responsiveness
  • Improved graphics core: full hardware fixed function VP9/HEVC (including 4K@60fps/10bit) decoding; improved hardware HEVC encoding; full hardware fixed function VP9 8bit encoding; higher GPU clock speeds for select CPUs
  • 200 series chipset (Union Point) on socket 1151 (Kaby Lake is compatible with 100 series chipset motherboards after a BIOS update)
  • Up to 16 PCI Express 3.0 lanes from the CPU, 24 PCI Express 3.0 lanes from PCH
  • Support for Intel Optane Technology (only on motherboards with the 200th series chipsets)

    • Compatibility

    While Skylake and Kaby Lake CPUs are fully compatible with most existing x86/x86-64 operating systems, full support for all CPU features may vary depending on OS. On January 15, 2016, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be the only supported Windows platform for Kaby Lake processors, and that all future generation processors under Windows will follow this trend and will only be supported by the latest Windows platform at their time of release. Intel has confirmed that no official Windows 7 or 8.x drivers will be produced for Kaby Lake. However, Intel eventually provided drivers such as the HD Graphics 620 driver for Windows 7 and 8 on its download center site.

    TDP classification

    Thermal design power or (TDP) is the designed maximum heat generated by the chip. On a single microarchitecture, as the heat produced increases with voltage and frequency, this thermal design limit can also limit the maximum frequency of the processor. However, CPU testing and binning allows for products with lower voltage/power at a particular frequency, or higher frequency within the same power limit.

    Desktop processors:

  • High-power: K: 91 W
  • Medium-power: (none): 65 W
  • Low-power: T: 35 W

    • Mobile processors:

  • High-power: H: 35 W, 45 W
  • Medium-power: U: 15 W, 28 W
  • Low-power: Y: 4.5 W

    • List of Kaby Lake processors

    Features common to desktop Kaby Lake CPUs:

  • LGA 1151 socket
  • DMI 3.0 and PCIe 3.0 interfaces
  • Dual channel memory support in the following configurations: DDR3L-1600 1.35 V (32 GiB maximum) or DDR4-2400 1.2 V (64 GiB maximum)
  • A total of 16 PCIe lanes
  • The Core-branded processors support the AVX2 instruction set. The Celeron and Pentium-branded ones support only SSE4.1/4.2
  • 350 MHz base graphics clock rate
  • No L4 cache (eDRAM).
  • A release date of January 3, 2017

    • References

    Kaby Lake Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA