Expected to take its rightful place as the flagship of Intel’s upcoming Broadwell E range, Intel’s i7-6950X Extreme Edition can’t be far away now, as it’s shown up in the change-log for Intel’s Management Engine. Better yet, the listing has let slip a few specifications for the powerful CPU too, getting us all the more jazzed about Intel’s next generation of 14nm processors.
While we already knew about the die size that Intel would use to fabricate this new line of CPUs, we weren’t aware of the monstrous L3 cache it would come packing. As per the Management Software’s page (via Tweakers), we can confirm that it’s a massive 25MB.
We also now know that the chip clocks in at a turbo-boosted 3.5Ghz, suggesting that we aren’t returning to the old days of ever-increasing stock frequencies just yet. Perhaps we’ll need some “5D electronic blood” for that.
Related: Intel’s 10-core monster planned for Q2 2016 debut, according to new leak
However, there’s no doubt that enthusiasts will take this chip to even greater extremes. That Extreme Edition moniker isn’t there just for show. We’re expecting an unlocked multiplier and the ability to tweak voltages to allow for some high-level overclocking. Expect modders and ‘clockers to get this chip under some liquid nitrogen in short order.
For those looking for high-performance without risking the warranty on their likely pricey chip though, the 6950X should offer monstrous performance at stock clocks, too. It is said to pack 10 cores, meaning with hyper-threading there are a potential 20 threads running on this single chip at any one time.
This will be the first 10-core chip that Intel has ever put out, and with the better utilization of multi-core CPUs under APIs like DirectX 12, this could be the best gaming chip in the world when released at some point in Q2 this year.
Although unconfirmed, the expectation (as per Hexus) is that the i7-6950X will debut alongside the rest of the Broadwell-E lineup at this year’s Computex in Taipei, which begins on May 31.
