Intel Core i5-7600K, 4 Cores & 4 Threads Unlocked Desktop Processor with Intel HD Graphics 630

I wanted to upgrade my 3-year old motherboard so my new M.2 drives could run at full speed. The old motherboard only ran them at half speed. So I purchased the following items to use with this CPU:MSI Pro Series Intel Z270 DDR4 HDMI USB 3 SLI ATX Motherboard (Z270 SLI PLUS)Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Desktop Memory Kit - White (CMK16GX4M2B3200C16W)Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (AM4 bracket available through Cooler Master USA)Samsung 960 EVO Series - 500GB NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E500BW) (boot drive with Windows 10 Professional)WD Black 512GB Performance SSD - 8 Gb/s M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive - WDS512G1X0C (secondary drive)And I had two leftover SATA-3 PCIe expansion cards, a GeForce GTX 960 video card, and a bunch of SSD drives.My old computer was pretty fast. But things are noticably faster, especially boot times and other disk processes on the M.2 drives.The new MSI motherboard I bought to use with this CPU is awesome. And the CPU cooler keeps this chip relatively cool. Everything works great together and I'm very happy with the new build!

I upgraded from an i3-6100, running on a Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 3 Rev 1.0 board and 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3000mhz (2x8GB). The i5-7600K helped resolve what I believed was an IMC limitation on my i3-6100. I could only get the Corsair to run stable at 2666, trying both XMP enabled and manual settings.After replacing the CPU (with this), I've had zero issues and I am running stable at full 3000mhz using XMP. I am overclocking the i5-7600K to 4.6ghz (100x46) using the quick settings in the BIOS (beta F21a). There are no hiccups, and I'm sure it can be pushed a little further. Overall computer response is certainly noticeable compared to the i3 Skylake.For cooling, I'm using a Hyper 212 EVO with AS5 applied in an older Antec 900 case with 2 stock 120mm intake fans, 1 stock 120mm exhaust fan and the top 200mm stock Antec Bigboy. With an ambient room temp of around 71f/21c, idle temps are 26c-27-26-30. Running 10 minutes of blended tests using Prime95 v26.6 (do not use versions highers, Google it), the temps peaked to 69-71c for Cores 0-2, with Core3 being a couple degrees higher. See attached picture of Prime95, CoreTemp and CPU-Z screen shot.Since this purchase, I added a Samsung 960 EVO 250GB NVMe as my boot drive. This drive coupled with the i5-7600k, yielded an 8 second Windows boot, from the time my monitor receives the video signal (prior to the Gigabyte logo on POST) displays, to the Windows login screen.CPU-Z v1.78.1.x64 using its own benchmark v15.01.64:- CPU Single Thread, 2339- CPU Multi Thread, 9120Did I need this CPU? No. Was I able to resell my i3-6100 to breakeven and use gift cards for the difference, yes. Would I buy this CPU if I was building a new system or massively upgrade? Absolutely.

I rate this five stars. I had this over 2 months now and it can OC easily. Before going to more details on this product, I want to mention couple discrepancies on the webpage. On the main screen, it mentions hyper-threating technology. Just be aware, all Intel Core i5 doesn't have HT. So only look at the specs section for the specific details on this product. Another thing people are confused on the 3.80Ghz and 4.20Ghz. The bare minimum is 3.80 however the manufacture has set turbo boost to 4.20 without any required tweaking. However, you can still OC because this processor is unlocked. The best OC I did while playing an ultra maxed out game without any interruption is 4.7 OC at 62C-68C temperature without any throttling.Pro: Less expensive than the Intel Core i7 Can perform extremely well on games (Depending on your GPU) Have fun Over Clocking (OC) and benchmark chasingCons: No Hyper-threating Need to purchase a CPU Cooler (By the way, don't use a regular heat-sink fan. That's the reason it doesn't come with one. Everyone who complains about not coming with a heat-sink fan should know heat destroys your performance which causes throttling. That's why you need to invest on a liquid cpu to handle all the heat stress. It's like buying a Ferrari vehicle but have a Geo Metro radiator installed. The CPU is unlocked therefore it will create heat. It's physics so stop complaining about it.)MSI Z270 M3Intel Core i5-7600KCorsair H100i V2San Disk SSD Plus 240GBMSI RX 480 Gaming X 8GBMSI RX 480 Gaming X 8GB (Crossfire)Corsair 4x8GB DDR4 3000Windows 10 64bit

Been nearly 2 years with this CPU. Now, I run a Corsair H100i V2 AIO water cooler. I have had this CPU overclocked to 5.0 ghz with no troubles, but the idle temps were higher than I liked; so, I keep the clock at 4.85 ghz and it idles around 40C now.This CPU is a monster for gaming. You can do streaming and other multi-tasking, but if you're building a rig now it's better to go with something with 6 cores and more threads. All-in-all, the 7600k is a wonderful CPU, especially for gaming only. It is a beast to overclock! Worth the price!Original Review:On the EVO 212, running 4.3 ghz, not even a drop of sweat. Great buy!