TheOverclocker Issue 40 | Page 27

generation CORE CPUs , it all went belly up .
This is a peculiar position to be in as consumers or at the very least those who are not only unmoved by the 7700K in particular , but look at it only with scorn . Here ’ s why this is of course in my opinion an untenable position that belays our buying habits than it does about the particular processor in question .
Just about everywhere on the Internet , there are message boards , social media discussions and forums where advice is doled out on a daily basis to those looking to upgrade their machines . The general advice is always buy a new graphics card before all other things if you don ’ t already have an SSD . The reasoning behind that is simply that these days games are GPU bound . This is particularly true as we move to an age where the minimum screen resolution is FHD by all accounts , with a growing number of users migrating to WQHD and of course UHD where the heavy lifting is shifted even more so to the GPU .
( Bear with me here , there ’ s a point to all this .)
If that is true and we advocate for - along with tech sites and such - the graphics card as the primary means by which we improve game performance . How would it be possible for us to observe increased IPC from any CPU ? If the 2600K from 2011 at 5GHz is still able to provide enough grunt to drive today ’ s TITAN-X ( PASCAL ), at WQHD and UHD pixel counts . Does that not make it a rather tall order for any CPU to show gains in such environments ?
Practically speaking , it is near impossible to show these gains and if we are to judge a CPUs merits by how it improves frame times , or latency solely ( as that is the most important metric for those who are targeted by said reviews and products to some level ). It becomes
impossible for any CPU to show its advancements in performance . The limiting factor has nothing to do with the CPU or platform , but something that is entirely out of INTEL ’ s control .
As such , looking at the 7700K , needs one to appreciate what INTEL has done to the CPU to make it different enough to the 6700K to warrant a new family of CPUs . Personally , I do feel a refresh would have sufficed , but one is familiar with the innerworkings of this tech industry to a limited degree and merely releasing a 6790K as witnessed previously with the DEVIL ’ s CANYON launch would have an undesirable effect on INTEL ’ s partners etc .
That aside , the one group capable of appreciating
the 7700K is the “ overclocking community ”. Just about every worthwhile feature introduced is made relevant in particular to the overclockers . Sure , almost all these features
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