Intel officially reveals the specification of their high-end X299 CPU lineup
Intel officially reveals the specification of their high-end X299 CPU lineup
When Intel announced their Skylake-X CPU lineup, their highest end 12-18 core SKUs were listed without their full specifications, leaving many curious how much single-threaded performance the company planned on offering when compared to their lower core count offerings. Â
Many assumed that Intel would have to sacrifice core clock speeds to maintain a low TDP with their 12-18 core parts, though Intel has done a great job to ensure that they are able to achieve high boost clock speeds that will allow Skylake-X to easily power through both single-threaded and heavily multi-threaded tasks. Â
We can see that even with increased core counts, Intel has been able to offer some high turbo boost frequencies on their high core count CPU offerings, offering Turbo Boost 3.0 speeds of 4.4GHz, which is a high boost clock speed for any modern CPU. Even so, the base clock speeds of higher-end models do see a downward trend as core counts increase, especially after Intel’s CPUs reach a higher TDP of 165W. Â Â
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 | Archtecture | Process | Cores/Threads | Base | Boost 2.0 | Boost 3.0 | L3 Cache | PCIe lanes | TDP | Price |
Core i9 7980XE | Skylake-X | 14nm+ | 18/36 | 2.6GHz | 4.2GHz | 4.4GHz | 24.75MB | 44 | 165W | $1999 |
Core i9 7960X | 16/32 | 2.8GHz | 4.2GHz | 4.4GHz | 22MB | 44 | 165W | $1699 | ||
Core i9 7940X | 14/28 | 3.1GHz | 4.3GHz | 4.4GHz | 19.25MB | 44 | 165W | $1399 | ||
Core i9 7920X | 12/24 | 2.9GHz | 4.3GHz | 4.4GHz | 16.5MB | 44 | 140W | $1199 | ||
Core i9 7900X | 10/20 | 3.3GHz | 4.3GHz | 4.5GHz | 13.75MB | 44 | 140W | $999 | ||
Core i7 7820X | 8/16 | 3.6GHz | 4.3GHz | 4.5GHz | 11MB | 28 | 140W | $599 | ||
Core i7 7800X | 6/12 | 3.5GHz | 4.0GHz | N/A | 8.25MB | 28 | 140W | $389 | ||
Core i7 7740X | Kaby Lake-X | 4/8 | 4.3GHz | 4.5GHz | N/A | 8MB | 16 | 112W | $339 | |
Core i5 7640X | 4/4 | 4.0GHz | 4.2GHz | N/A | 6MB | 16 | 112W | $242 |
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What we can see here is that Intel’s higher core count offerings will not be making any major sacrifices when it comes to single-threaded performance, which is great news for consumers. Â
It will be very interesting to see how AMD’s upcoming Threadripper series of CPUs will compete with Skylake-X, given their more affordable pricing per core and the 64 available PCIe 3.0 lanes that are present in every Threadripper CPU.
High-end overclockers will also be interested in how well Intel’s X299 platform copes with 18-core CPU overclocking, given the recent thermal controversies surrounding the VRM temps of motherboards in AVX heavy tasks.
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Intel has announced that their 12-core i9 7920X will be available on August 28th, with their higher-end 14-18 core models becoming available to purchase from September 25th.Â
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You can join the discussion on Intel’s high-end X299 CPU lineup on the OC3D Forums.
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