Intel seems to be going for overclockers

Hardly mainstream

One of the things that we are noticing is that all the leaks and other information coming out of Chipzilla, suggests that the outfit is getting excited about the overclocking market.

A lot of the marketing buzz about Kaby Lake architecture on the desktop by focusing on overclocking performance. Chipzilla has several unlocked processors based on Kaby Lake, and they are not just at the high end.

Already overclockable Kaby Lake Core i7 and Core i5 processors have been leaked but the trend is suggesting that Intel will target cash strapped system builders with at least one unlocked Core i3 series processor, that being the dual-core processor Core i3-7350K. The retail box version will be sold for $ 177 which means that street pricing could end up being anywhere from $ 150 to $ 180.

The Core i3-7350K will have Hyper Threading support and is fast already with a base clock speed of 4GHz and a boost frequency of 4.2GHz. It is unclear how much overclocking you will get on top of that. But if you can get a couple of of hundred MHz with air cooling and a TDP rating of 61W as expected you could get a cost-effective chip. If it does not turn into a pile of molten plastic in your computer.

Kaby Lake is not that exciting to enthusiasts, but Intel seems to be wanting to get a few more overclockers interested at the lower end of the market. A sub-$ 200 part that could open overclocking to a wider audience might just work.

It is a moot point if this will do much for sales. Overclocking is useful if you know what you are doing, and most buying at that price range either don’t know what they are doing, or are too scared to try it.