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543318-intel-core-i9-x-series

Intel and AMD take been locked in combat ever since Ryzen 7 debuted and put AMD back in the CPU race for the get-go fourth dimension in six years. Both companies are prepping to release college core count processors, but Intel is playing this game fairly conservatively, if recent rumors tin can be believed.

Co-ordinate to VideoCardz leaked presentation, Intel's upcoming Core i9-7920X will be a 12-cadre / 24-thread CPU with 16.5MB of cache. That works out to the same 1.375MB of L3 that other Skylake-SP processors accept. Merely the reported base core clock is rather low, at just two.9GHz. That'due south 400MHz lower than Intel's 10-core Cadre i9-7900X, which means the Core i9-7920X trades a ~13 pct base clock drop for a twenty percent increase in cadre count. That's not a huge gain, and while we don't know the heave clock speed, we practise know that Intel's thermal paste solution isn't working well for the Cadre i9-7900X. Calculation more than cores will only brand the problem worse. Intel tin thwart this marketing hit by setting a high boost clock for ane-2 cores, but under total load the chip may very well throttle, based on the behavior of the 7900X.

Intel-Core-X-series-pricing-July-2017

Paradigm past Videocardz

The estimated toll of Intel's 12-core chip is $1,199. AMD's 12-core Threadripper volition sell for $799, while the sixteen-core version will be $999. While Intel yet has an border over AMD in unmarried-threaded performance, how these fries compare will come downward to how well they tin can maintain their base of operations and boost clocks under load. AMD'southward 12-core CPU has a 3.5GHz base and a 4GHz boost, while its 16-core version has a 3.4GHz base and a 4GHz boost. That's a one.21x clock speed advantage for AMD (on paper). But nosotros'll take to meet what clocks these chips tin can really hold before we can say much about how well they'll friction match upward against 1 some other.

Nosotros're nevertheless hoping Intel will shift course on using thermal paste instead of solder on its high core-count CPUs, and that the initial issues reported with early X299 boards volition be resolved by future editions of these products. It seems articulate, based on the evidence we've seen to date, that the Core i9 family wasn't quite ready for launch when Intel debuted it. That's not to say that Skylake-SP is a bad blueprint (it isn't), just estrus and thermal issues seem to be holding the chip back from hitting its full potential. That may not be a trouble if you don't overclock, but the frequency offset on the Core i9-7920X (if this rumor proves true) takes a significant chunk out of the performance increase you lot'd expect when moving from a ten-core to a 12-core chip.

In short: In that location'south an opportunity for AMD and Threadripper here, but we'll have to wait and see if AMD can seize it.