The Intel Core i9-10980XE gives AMD a run for its money in Geekbench listing; scores 42% more than the Threadripper 2950X in the process

As claimed by @momomo_US earlier this week, it looks like Intel has a Core i9-10980XE on the way, at least according to a new Geekbench listing spotted by the same leaker. The follow-up to the Core i9-9980XE will likely be Intel's top-tier Cascade Lake-X processor, its new series High-End Desktop (HEDT) that will inevitably face competition from the third generation of AMD's Ryzen Threadripper series this November.

The benchmark reports that the Core i9-10980XE is a GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 85 Stepping 7, the same identifier used for previous Cascade Lake-X processors we have seen appear online. Moreover, it states that the 18 core chip will support Hyper-Threading and will have 24.8 MB of L3 cache, just like the Core i9-9980XE.

The Core i9-10980XE achieved a single-core score of 5,381 and a multi-core score of 51,514, which are both higher than any Ryzen Threadripper processor we have currently reviewed. However, we have already seen 3rd generation Threadripper chips surpassing the Core i9-10980XE in the Geekbench multi-core benchmark, although we should stress that neither AMD nor Intel have confirmed these figures. It is also worth keeping in mind that the Ryzen 9 3900X scored 5,880 in the single-core benchmark during our review unit, which may be an indication of what the Zen 2-based 3rd generation Threadripper series will achieve when they come to market.

While a multi-core score of 51,514 is impressive, it was achieved with 130 GB of RAM. We have already seen the multi-core scores of 32 core 3rd generation Threadripper processors vary by up to 50% depending on the volume of RAM with which they have been paired. Ultimately, the Core i9-10980XE currently does not look like a substantial improvement over the Core i9-9980XE, which has a multi-core score of 57,550 points in our database. We would not recommend judging a chip based on one unconfirmed benchmark, but any performance improvements may be clock speed based as Intel will manufacturer Cascade Lake-X on a 14 nm FinFET process, a process it has been using with its HEDT chips for a few years.