We've been waiting for one of these for a long time. We know that Intel's Core i3 technology is good for gaming - up until recently, the Haswell-based Core i3 4130 has been at the heart of our budget PC build - but what if we could overclock it? Could a dual-core i3 operating within striking distance of 5.0GHz work as good, or indeed better, than a locked Core i5 quad-core processor? With the release of the Core i3 7350K, we can finally find out.
On the face of it, the i3 7350K follows Intel's established precedent for its unlocked K chips. The firm takes the top-of-the-line product in the range, bumps up frequency a little and unlocks both base clock and multiplier for overclocking. In the case of the i3 7350K, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. On the one hand, you get the fastest i3 ever made out of the box - it runs at 4.2GHz locked, and you also get the benefit of 4MB of onboard cache (the cheaper i3s and Pentiums have only 3MB). But the bad news is that the 7350K is relatively expensive for what it offers. It's a dual-core chip that cost around £170-£180. That's perhaps too close to the lower-end locked i5 quad core chips out there.
In effect, Intel is asking us to make the comparison: which is better, a stupidly fast dual-core chip, or a more modestly clocked quad? Muddying the waters somewhat is that the lower-end i3s tend to be more reasonably priced - a good £60 to £70 less for an i3 6100 or i3 7100. And then there's the elephant in the room: the Pentium G4560. Intel's Kaby Lake offerings may have underwhelmed in terms of value at the top-end, but there's a quiet revolution occurring in the budget sector. The G4560 shaves off clock-speed and some features, but it's essentially a 3.5GHz version of the i3 - and we picked one up for just £63.
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