Kaby Lake is Intel's codename for its seventh generation Core-branded microprocessor family 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, with its desktop chips officially launched in January 2017.
In August 2017, Intel announced Kaby Lake Refresh (Kaby Lake R) marketed as the 8th generation mobile CPUs, breaking the long cycle where architectures matched the corresponding generations of CPUs and meanwhile also supporting Windows 11. Skylake was anticipated to be succeeded by the 10 nanometer Cannon Lake, but it was announced in July 2015 that Cannon Lake had been delayed until the second half of 2017. In the meantime, Intel released a fourth 14 nm generation on October 5, 2017, named Coffee Lake. Cannon Lake would ultimately emerge in 2018, but only a single mobile CPU was released before it was discontinued the following year.
Development history As with previous Intel processors (such as the 8088, Banias, Dothan, Conroe, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and Skylake), Kaby Lake's development was led by Intel's Israeli team, based in 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 adds native HDCP 2.2 support, along with fixed function decode of H.264 (AVC), HEVC Main and Main10/10-bit, and VP9 10-bit and 8-bit video. Hardware encode is supported for H.264 (AVC), HEVC Main10/10-bit, and VP9 8-bit video. VP9 10-bit encode is not supported in hardware. Both OpenGL 4.6 and OpenCL 3.0 are now supported.
Kaby Lake is the first Core architecture to support hyper-threading 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:
CPU Intel claims 10x performance/Watt over Nehalem (up from 8x on Skylake) Increased clock speeds on some CPUs models Faster clock speed changes (improved Intel 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 Add hardware MBEC support
GPU Gen 9.5 (From Gen 9) Add support for Microsoft PlayReady 3.0 HDCP 2.2 Add 1.4 Embedded DisplayPort (From 1.3) Add HDMI 2.0 support (Most motherboards are limited to 1.4) Improved graphics core: full hardware fixed function HEVC/VP9 (including 4K@60fps/10bit) decoding; improved hardware HEVC encoding; full hardware fixed function VP9 8bit encoding; higher GPU clock speeds for select CPUs
I/O 200 series (Union Point) chipset 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 Memory storage caching (only on motherboards with the 200 series chipsets) Support for PTWRITE instruction to write data to an Intel Processor Trace packet stream
Starting from this generation, the built-in GPus core supports HAGS in the Windows 10 version of 2004 or newer, but currently support is only provided with insider drivers.
Operating system support Intel began to add Kaby Lake support to the Linux kernel on version 4.5. A P state bug was fixed in kernel 4.10 that had prevented motherboards from activating the processors' turbo frequencies.
Under new policies established in January 2016, Microsoft only supports an NT 10.0-based Windows platform on newly-released CPU microarchitectures, beginning with Kaby Lake and AMD Bristol Ridge. Therefore, Microsoft only supports Kaby Lake under Windows 10, and despite Windows Update blocking updates from being installed on Kaby Lake systems running versions older than Windows 10, Kaby Lake, like its preceding Intel architectures, includes limited driver support for certain XP editions such as Windows Embedded POSReady 2009. In support of this restriction, Intel provides chipset drivers for Windows 10 only, although VirtualBox provides drivers for other versions. An enthusiast-created modification was released that disabled the Windows Update check and allowed Windows 8.1 and earlier to continue to be updated on Skylake and later platforms. Windows XP and earlier, and all x86 versions and editions of Vista are also not supported.
Support for Kaby Lake and older processors was dropped by Windows 11, with the exclusion of Kaby Lake R, Kaby Lake G, Kaby Lake X, and Amber Lake processors, as well as the Core i7-7820HQ.
Known issues Kaby Lake has a critical flaw where some short loops may cause unpredictable system behavior with hyper-threading enabled. The issue can be fixed if the motherboard manufacturer releases a BIOS update with the fix.
TDP classification Thermal design power (TDP) is the designed maximum heat generated by the chip running a specific workload at base clock. 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/X): For dual-core: 60 W For quad-core: 91 W (LGA1151) - 112W (LGA2066) Medium-power: For dual-core: 51...54 W For quad-core: 65 W Low-power (T): 35 W
Mobile processors: High-power (H): 45 W with configurable TDP-down to 35 W Medium-power (U): 15...28 W with configurable TDP-down to 7.5 W Low-power (Y): 5...7 W with configurable TDP-down to 3.5 W
List of 7th generation Kaby Lake processors Desktop 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 GB maximum) or DDR4-2400 1.2 V (64 GB 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
Processorbranding Model Cores(threads) CPU clock rate (GHz)Turbo clock (GHz) Num of cores GPU Max GPUclock rate L3cache TDP Socket Price(USD) 1 2 4 Core i77700K 4 (8) 4.2 4.5 4.4 HD 630 1150 MHz 8 MB 91 W LGA 1151 $350 7700 3.6 4.2 4.1 4.0 65 W $312 7700T 2.9 3.8 3.7 3.6 35 W Core i57600K 4 (4) 3.8 4.2 4.1 4.0 6 MB 91 W $250 7600 3.5 4.1 4.0 3.9 65 W $224 7600T 2.8 3.7 3.6 3.51100 MHz 35 W 7500 3.4 3.8 3.7 3.6 65 W $202 7500T 2.7 3.3 3.2 3.1 35 W 7400 3.0 3.5 3.43.31000 MHz 65 W $182 7400T 2.4 3.02.92.7 35 W $187 Core i37350K 2 (4) 4.2 rowspan="16" colspan="3" 1150 MHz 4 MB 60 W $179 7320 4.1 51 W $1577300 4.0 $1477300T3.51100 MHz35 W71003.93 MB51 W$1177100T3.435 W7101E3.954 W7101TE3.435 WPentiumG46203.751 W$93G46003.6$82G4600T3.01050 MHz35 W$75G45603.5HD 61054 W$64G4560T2.935 WCeleronG39502 (2)3.02 MB51 W$52G39302.9$42G3930T2.71000 MHz35 W
High-end desktop processors (Kaby Lake-X)
Features common to desktop Kaby Lake-X CPUs: LGA 2066 socket Support DDR4-2666 (64 GB maximum), but not DDR3L memory A total of 16 PCIe lanes No integrated GPU A release date June 2017 Processorbranding Model Cores(threads) CPUclock rate (GHz)Turbo clock (GHz) Num of cores GPU Max GPUclock rate L3cache TDP Socket Price(USD) 1 2 4 Core i77740X 4 (8) 4.3 4.5 rowspan="2" colspan="2" 8 MB 112 W LGA 2066 $350 Core i57640X 4 (4) 4.0 4.2 4.0 6 MB $250
Mobile processors High power Maximum PCIe Lanes: 16. Release date: Q1 2017.
Processorbranding Model Cores(threads) CPUclock rate (GHz)Turbo clock (GHz) Num of cores GPUMax GPU clock rate L3cache TDPcTDP Price(USD) 1 2 4 Max. Up DownCore i77920HQ4 (8)3.14.13.93.7HD 6301100 MHz8 MB45 W rowspan="7" 35 W $5687820HQ2.93.93.73.5 $3787820HK7700HQ2.83.83.63.46 MBCore i57440HQ4 (4)1000 MHz $2507300HQ2.53.53.33.1 Core i37100H 2 (4)3.0 colspan="3" 950 MHz3 MB 35 W $225
Low/medium power
Processorbranding Model Cores(threads) CPUclock rate (GHz)Turbo clock (GHz) Num of cores GPUMax GPUclock rate L3cache L4cache Max.PCIelanes TDP cTDP Releasedate Price(USD) 1 2 Up DownCore i7 7Y75 2 (4) 1.3 3.6 3.4 HD 615 1050 MHz 4 MB rowspan="2" 10 4.5 W 7 W 3.5 W Q3 2016 $393 7500U 2.7 3.5 HD 620 12 15 W 25 W 7.5 W 7560U 2.4 3.8 3.7 Iris Plus 640 64 MB rowspan="3" 9.5 W Q1 2017 $415 7660U 2.5 4.0 3.8 1100 MHz 7567U 3.9 Iris Plus 650 1150 MHz 28 W 23 W ? 7600U 2.8 3.9 HD 620 15 W 7.5 W $393Core i57200U 2.5 3.1 1000 MHz 3 MB rowspan="3" Q3 2016 $2817Y541.2 3.2 2.8HD 615950 MHz4 MB104.5 W7 W3.5 W7Y57 3.3 2.915 W Q1 20177260U 2.2 3.4 Iris Plus 64064 MB12 rowspan="3" 9.5 W $3047267U 3.1 3.5Iris Plus 650 1050 MHz28 W23 W?7287U 3.3 3.71100 MHz7300U 2.6 3.5 HD 620 3 MB 15 W 25 W 7.5 W $281 7360U 2.3 3.6 Iris Plus 640 1000 MHz 4 MB 64 MB 9.5 W ?Core i3 7100U 2.4 colspan="2" rowspan="4" HD 6203 MB rowspan="4" 7.5 W Q3 2016 $281 7167U 2.8 Iris Plus 650 64 MB 28 W 23 W Q1 2017 ? 7130U 2.7 HD 620 rowspan="2" 15 W 7.5 W Q2 2017 $281 7020U 2.3 Q2 2018 Core m3 7Y32 1.1 3.0 ? HD 615 900 MHz 4 MB rowspan="2" 10 4.5 W 7 W 3.75 W Q2 2017$281 7Y30 1.0 2.6 3.5 W Q3 2016Pentium Gold 4410Y 1.5 colspan="2" rowspan="3" 850 MHz2 MB rowspan="3" 6 W rowspan="3" 4.5 WQ1 2017$161 4415Y 1.6 4415U 2.3 HD 610 950 MHz 15 W 10 W Celeron3965U 2 (2) 2.2 colspan="2" rowspan="3" 900 MHz rowspan="3" rowspan="3" 10 W $1073865U 1.83965Y 1.5 HD 615 850 MHz 6 W 4.5 W Q2 2017
Server/workstation Xeon processors
Target segment Cores(threads)Model CPUclock rate (GHz)Turbo clock (GHz) Num of cores GPU Max GPU clock rate L3cache TDP Releasedate Price(USD) 1 2 4 Server 4 (8) E3-1285 v6 4.1 4.5? HD P630 1150 MHz 8 MB 79 W Q3 2017 $450 E3-1280 v6 3.9 4.2 colspan="2" 72 W Q1 2017 $612↘383 E3-1275 v6 3.8 HD P630 1150 MHz 73 W $339 E3-1270 v6 colspan="2" 72 W $328 E3-1245 v6 3.7 4.1 HD P630 1150 MHz 73 W $284 E3-1240 v6 rowspan="2" colspan="2" 72 W $272 E3-1230 v6 3.5 3.9 $250 4 (4) E3-1225 v6 3.3 3.7 HD P630 1150 MHz 73 W $213 E3-1220 v6 3.0 3.5 colspan="2" 72 W $193 Mobile 4 (8) E3-1535M v6 3.1 4.2 HD P630 1100 MHz 45 W $623 E3-1505M v6 3.0 4.0 $434 Embedded E3-1505L v6 2.2 3.0 1000 MHz 25 W $433
List of 8th generation Kaby Lake R processors
Mobile processors Low/medium power