Intel Core i3-7350K Review

Office & Productivity Applications

7-Zip 16.02

The Core i5s lead while a previous-gen Core i3-6320 beats the stock Core i3-7350K, but can't hold off the dual-core chip overclocked.

Adobe After Effects CC

We see a finishing order that reflects a preference for more physical cores, followed by Hyper-Threaded dual-core CPUs. AMD's Athlon X4 750 at least has two clustered multi-threading modules to throw at the problem. The Pentium G3258 has no such feature, and it stumbles hard.

Adobe Illustrator CC (64-bit)

Adobe InDesign CC (64-bit)

The stock Core i3-7350K nudges past Intel's Core i5-7500. The Athlon X4 750K falls into a class of its own at the bottom of the chart.

Adobe Photoshop CC (64-bit)

Intel's overclocked Core i3-7350K tears through this sequence ahead of the beefier quad-core competitors. Even a stock -7350K leads the Core i5-7400. 

The heavy test is more taxing, but still favors the Core i3-7350K's higher frequency over more physical cores. 

Advanced Photo Editing & 4K Video Editing

When we activate OpenCL, AMD's Radeon RX 470 reduces the project's completion time significantly. If you have a compatible GPU at your disposal, OpenCL offers a radical performance increase. The Athlon X4 750K struggled mightily during the CPU test, and we conducted the test several times to verify the result.

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Blender 2.78b

Up top, the Core i5-7600K and -7500 predictably finish this benchmark first, but an overclocked Core i3-7350K demonstrates that it can triumph over Intel's Core i5-7400, even in a well-threaded application. The Pentium G4620 also receives a nice bump from Hyper-Threading, allowing the dual-core CPU to beat AMD's Athlon X4 750K and the Pentium G3258.

Cinebench R15

The overclocked Core i3-7350K's high frequency propels it to the top of our chart, while the Core i5-7600K slides into second place by virtue of its top 4.2 GHz Turbo Boost bin. Naturally, if that processor were overclocked as well, it'd be right up there with the -7350K. Intel's Core i5-7500 benefits from a 3.8 GHz Turbo Boost ceiling to zip past the Pentium G4620's fixed 3.7 GHz clock rate.

Other Intel CPUs fall in line according to frequency. Meanwhile, the Athlon, based on AMD's Piledriver architecture, lands in last due to its IPC throughput deficit.

Our overclocked Core i3-7350K leaps ahead of the stock -7350K, which the Core i3-6320 nearly catches. AMD's dual-module Athlon X4 750K benefits from its additional integer cores, beating Intel's Pentium G3258 by a fair margin.

An aggressive clock rate puts Intel's Core i3-7350K in first place with 146.85 FPS. The Core i3-6320 trails the stock -7350K by a hair, while a Pentium G4620 bests the more expensive Core i5-7400.

HandBrake

Intel's Core i3-7350K surfaces as the fastest dual-core CPU, and it nearly catches the Core i5-7400 after our overclocking efforts. Intel's Pentium G3258 struggles under the workload's weight (it took 3.5 hours to finish), while the Pentium G4620 leverages Hyper-Threading to fare much better. Still, this benchmark wants more cores than the Pentiums offer.

LAME MP3 Encoder

Our chart's finishing order is almost exclusively organized by clock rate. The Core i5-7600K's Turbo Boost technology yields a slight advantage over the Core i3-6320. However, an unlocked multiplier makes the i5 ideal for further tuning. Without question, an extra 500 or 600 MHz would yield near-parity with the overclocked Core i3.

Microsoft Excel 2016

While Core i5s dominate the upper range of our chart, overclocking the Core i3-7350K pushes it up into second place.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2016

The Pentium G4620 barely succumbs to Intel's Core i5-7400, which we wouldn't expect given the cheaper part's clock rate advantage.

Microsoft Word 2016

As we saw in Cinebench, an overclocked Core i3-7350K enjoys a victory lap, but places third in its stock configuration.