Intel has finally gave the green light on its "unlocked" K-series 32nm Core i5-655K and 45nm Core i7-875K CPU, and now we can finally see what these two new CPUs are capable of and are they actually any good. All reviews agree on at least one thing, as while it is nice to see an affordable "unlocked" CPUs from Intel, the performance, or to be precise, the overclocking potential is anything but impressive.

The lack of overclocking potential actually isn't that strange as these two are exactly the same as the Core i5-650 and the Core i7-870 and Intel's intention wasn't aimed at and overclocking beast or anything similar. Intel made these CPUs for system integrators as, thanks to the unlocked multiplier, they can offer pre-overclocked systems without any additional hassle or special (read expensive) motherboards with BIOS that is capable of high overclock.

The quad-core Core i7-875K works at 2.93GHz, has eight threads, 8MB of L3 cache and a 95W TDP. This one will set you back US $342 which isn't that bad considering that you get a quad-core with an unlocked multiplier. The slower Core i5-655K is a dual-core clocked at 3.2GHz, has four threads, 4MB of L3 cache and a TDP of 73W. Bear in mind that the Core i5-655K comes with integrated graphics as well and has a price tag of US $216.

Both of the CPUs should offer same overclocking result on air as Intel doesn't use a special binning process for these two, although the overclocking is much easier thanks to the unlocked multiplier. The two new K-series CPUs do make sense if you are an enthusiast that wants to do some mild overclocking on air/water cooling as it is always easier to simply raise the multiplier in order to overclock the CPU.

You can check out the review list below.

- Anandtech
- Overclockersclub
- HotHardware
- Hexus