Notebookcheck Logo

COMPUTEX 2017 | Intel confirms enthusiast Core i9 series with SKUs up to 18 cores for $2000 USD

Intel confirms Core i9 series with SKUs up to 18 cores for $2000 USD
Intel confirms Core i9 series with SKUs up to 18 cores for $2000 USD
The unlocked X-series will consist of processors spanning from the Core i5-7640X for $242 USD all the way up to the $2000 Core i9-7980XE.

Skylake will live on as the Skylake-X for the brand new X-series series of enthusiast processors. Intel has made public five Core i9 SKUs this far in the upcoming Core i9 family, but further details remain incomplete.

The highest-end SKU will be the Core i9-7980XE with its 18-core configuration and Hyper-Threading for 36 simultaneous threads. The base clock rate for the CPU has not yet been confirmed, but expect this particular processor to retail for just under two grand.

A second SKU will be the Core i9-7900X with its 10-core configuration, 3.3 GHz base clock rate, 13.75 MB L3 cache and support for 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes for a $1000 USD asking price. The 140 W TDP CPU will also sport Turbo Boost 3.0 for a maximum theoretical clock rate of up to 4.5 GHz. It's worth mentioning that the Ryzen R7 1800X utilizes a larger 16 MB L3 cache size at about half the MSRP, though more testing will be required to get a better performance-per-Dollar comparison between Ryzen and Skylake-X.

The unlocked Core i9 series will integrate a quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory controller and the underutilized AVX 512 instruction set. The existing Core i5 and i7 families will also be carrying new X-series SKUs with reduced cache, cores, and clock rates as shown by the table below.

It's unlikely that any of these processors will make their way to laptops anytime soon based on the demanding 112 W TDP or higher. If they do, however, we expect Clevo to be one of the first to support the X-series as barebones already exist supporting LGA 1151 processors of up to 95 W.

Intel Core i9
Intel Core i9
Intel Core X-Family
Intel Core X-Family
Intel Core X-Family
Intel Core X-Family
Intel Core X-Family
Intel Core X-Family

Source(s)

Intel

static version load dynamic
Loading Comments
Comment on this article
Please share our article, every link counts!
> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2017 05 > Intel confirms enthusiast Core i9 series with SKUs up to 18 cores for $2000 USD
Allen Ngo, 2017-05-31 (Update: 2018-05-15)