Intel Releases 200-Series Kaby Lake Platform; Closer Look At Specs, Motherboard Roundup From ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock, EVGA [VIDEO]

By Harsh Soni

Intel has officially launched their latest Kaby Lake 200-series platforms. The lineup is a part of the annual refresh cycle, which Intel offers to desktop PC consumers and as such, motherboard vendors have amassed a handsome array of Z270 and H270 series motherboards for gamers, PC builders, and enthusiasts as well as over clockers.

Intel will also be offering support for the Kaby Lake and Skylake processors on 100-series and 200-series motherboards. This means that consumers will make the use of older Skylake chips on a 200-series board or a Kaby Lake chip on the 100-series board.

The Intel Core i7-7700K processor is the fastest Core i7 chip in whole Kaby Lake lineup. This chip is featuring a quad-core, hyper-threaded design and based on the latest 14nm plus process node that will delivers improved efficiency and performance on the existing 14nm FinFET technology. The clock speeds are rated at 4.2 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost. The processor is having 8 MB of L3 cache and TDP of 91W. The Core i7-7700K CPU will retail at $305 US, reports WccFtech.

Intel has also included the same CPU PCIe configuration support for both Z270 and Z170. They will allow for 1 x 16, 1 x 8 + 2 x 4, or 2 x 8 configuration whereas the H270 and H170 chipsets offers only the 1 x 16 configuration.

The PCH features three independent Display Ports that all can power up to four memory DIMMs in the Dual Channel mode. The Z Series is also engineered to facilitate overclocking whereas the H series lacks in that ability. All chipsets in the series will come with Intel SmartSound technology, though the AIB partners are likely to offer their own Audio Codecs instead of using the stock version, MobiPicker Notes.

The processor packs with 4 MB of L3 cache and will have a TDP around 91W. The Core i3-7350K CPU will retail for $157 US.

Below, are the details of motherboards that are available: