The CPU wars have heated up recently, with AMD releasing its Ryzen chips based on its new Zen architecture and Intel responding with some price cuts and by accelerating its plans for faster Core processors. Now, Intel has announced a roadmap at E3 2017 for some of its most powerful CPUs ever.
Specifically, Intel will be releasing its X299 chipset and a number of Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processors to go with it that should better position it to compete with AMD’s fastest options. Some of the new products are now in the hands of reviewers and Intel will continue to roll out the line through the summer and into the fall.
The new Core-X processor family will ultimately offer between four and 16 cores with multithreading and will support the most advanced technologies such as its Intel’s Optane memory, Thunderbolt 3, and faster RAM. And as ExtremeTech reports, a range of new CPUs are up for pre-order and will be available starting on June 26, as part of Intel’s Basin Falls X299 platform:
| i5-7640X | i7-7740X | i7-7800X | i7-7820X | i9-7900X | |
| Cores: | 4 Cores/4 Threads | 4 Cores/8 Threads | 6 Cores/12 Threads | 8 Cores/16 Threads | 10 Cores/20 Threads |
| Base Clock: | 4.0GHz | 4.3GHz | 3.5GHz | 3.6GHz | 3.3GHz |
| Turbo Clock: | 4.2GHz | 4.5GHz | 4.0GHz | 4.3GHz | 4.3GHz |
| TurboMax Clock: | N/A | N/A | N/A | 4.5GHz | 4.5GHz |
| L2 Cache: | 256KB per core | 256KB per core | 1MB per core | 1MB per core | 1MB per core |
| L3 Cache: | 6MB | 8MB | 8.25MB | 11MB | 13.75MB |
| PCIe Lanes: | 16 | 16 | 28 | 28 | 44 |
| RAM Channels: | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Memory Speed: | DDR4-2666MHz | DDR4-2666MHz | DDR4-2400MHz | DDR4-2666MHz | DDR4-2666MHz |
| TDP: | 112 watts | 112 watts | 140 watts | 140 watts | 140 watts |
| Price: | $242 | $339 | $389 | $599 | $999 |
Newegg is one of the first retailers to take pre-orders on the new chips, and here is a handy list:
- Intel Core i5-7640X, $250
- Intel Core i7-7740X, $350
- Intel Core i7-7800X, $390
- Intel Core i7-7820X, $600
- Intel Core i9-7900X, $1,000
In addition, Intel is expected to start shipping 12-core processors in August and then 14, 16, and 18-core CPUs in October. That will allow the company to compete more directly with AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper chips with 16 cores that are due to ship over the summer. Many of these parts are multithreaded, meaning that we are looking at processors with between four and 36 threads, which will provide for some serious computing power on the desktop.
If you are building a new PC, then you have a dizzying array of new CPUs to choose from. Given AMD’s upcoming Vega GPUs and Nvidia’s inevitable response, building a new PC anytime in the next year is going to involve a number of important choices. It’s great, however, that all of this competition is going to result in even more powerful PCs for less money.
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