Intel Core i7-7660U Review

The Core i7-7660U is one of Intel's high-end-low-power Laptop processors. It was released in 2016 with 2 cores and 4 threads. With base clock at 2.5GHz, max speed at 4GHz, and a 15W power rating. The Core i7-7660U is based on the Kaby Lake U 14nm family and is part of the Core i7 series.

Core i7-7660U is also the successor of Intel's last gen Core i7-6560U processor that was based on the Skylake-U and 14nm process and was released in 2015.

Bear in mind, however, that if you already have something like the Core i7-6560U, this generation doesn't offer the biggest boost in performance. You might want to wait another year or so before dropping a few hundred bucks, or even opt to splurge on a higher-end but pricier chip.

Intel has been having some trouble as of late which has made it even harder to compete with the incoming wave of FX processors. That has forced the chip maker to be a little more creative and make do with their current product lines. Today we have the Intel Core i7-7660U on hand, which in itself isn’t anything new. It’s basically a refreshed Core i7-6560U with a clock speed boost. We say basically because it’s not a straight refresh however, there’s another change.

One of the nice things about the Intel Core i7-7660U processors is that the retail boxed models come with a CPU cooler. So, you can pick something like the Intel Core i7-7660U up for $415 and don’t need to spend any extra money on CPU cooling.

The Intel Core i7-7660U retail boxed processor comes with the traditional ‘pancake’ CPU cooler. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done on this processor which is rated at 15W TDP. You do not need to have an aftermarket cooling solution unless you want to.

Intel arms Core i7-7660U with a 2.5 GHz base frequency that jumps as high as 4 GHz under lightly-threaded tasks. The Core i7-7660U also offers a 2.5 GHz clock rate with all cores active. Meanwhile, AMD keeps its FX-9830P operating at a static 3.7 GHz clock rate.