Tuesday, May 31st 2016
Intel Announces the Core i7 "Broadwell-E" HEDT Processor Series
Intel today announced the Core i7 "Broadwell-E" processor series. Built in the socket LGA2011v3 package, these chips work with motherboards based on the Intel X99 Express chipset, some boards may require BIOS updates to support these chips. At the heart of the lineup is the 14 nm "Broadwell-E" silicon. Intel is launching not three but four SKUs, including two six-core, one eight-core, and one ten-core.
The lineup begins with the Core i7-6800K. This six-core chip features 15 MB of L3 cache, 3.40 GHz clocks with 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost, 28 PCI-Express lanes, and a price of US $434. Next up, is the Core i7-6850K, which is also a six-core chip with 15 MB L3 cache, but features slightly higher clock speeds of 3.60 GHz with 3.80 Turbo Boost, but more importantly, features the full 40 PCI-Express lanes of the silicon. The Core i7-6850K is priced at US $617. Further up the lineup is the Core i7-6900K, with eight cores, 20 MB L3 cache, 3.20 GHz clocks with 3.70 GHz maximum Turbo Boost, and a price of $1,089. The price-per-core dramatically shoots up from here, as we get to the Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, the jewel in Intel's crown, featuring ten cores, 25 MB of L3 cache, 3.00 GHz clocks with 3.50 GHz Turbo Boost, and a wallet-scorching $1,723 price.
The lineup begins with the Core i7-6800K. This six-core chip features 15 MB of L3 cache, 3.40 GHz clocks with 3.60 GHz Turbo Boost, 28 PCI-Express lanes, and a price of US $434. Next up, is the Core i7-6850K, which is also a six-core chip with 15 MB L3 cache, but features slightly higher clock speeds of 3.60 GHz with 3.80 Turbo Boost, but more importantly, features the full 40 PCI-Express lanes of the silicon. The Core i7-6850K is priced at US $617. Further up the lineup is the Core i7-6900K, with eight cores, 20 MB L3 cache, 3.20 GHz clocks with 3.70 GHz maximum Turbo Boost, and a price of $1,089. The price-per-core dramatically shoots up from here, as we get to the Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition, the jewel in Intel's crown, featuring ten cores, 25 MB of L3 cache, 3.00 GHz clocks with 3.50 GHz Turbo Boost, and a wallet-scorching $1,723 price.
28 Comments on Intel Announces the Core i7 "Broadwell-E" HEDT Processor Series
Whether that price is justified or not I dont care. I'll leave that for others to discuss.
But a ten core is certainly welcome :)
I got a great price for my 5820K at the time I bought it. I'll stick with that for probably 4 to 5 more years.
What kind of market analysis did they do to come up with 1700.
You don't even get a core bump, because now the new 8-core chip has the same price as the last year's 8-core chip. Which makes it a mute point. In order to get +2 cores you need to shelve +60% more which is frankly ridiculous.
Whereas in the Xeon family (E5 v4) they at least bumped the cores by 2 (compared to E5 v3) while keeping the same prices. (not a huge thing if you ask me, but if you own 100% of the market you can do that just because. At least it's something then nothing).
In my opinion what they could at least do, is instead of 1700, make the chip at 1.500 (which a bit more easy to swallow) but then again instead of 140W, make that chip at 180W (or even maybe 200W) and clock it a 4.0GHz by default (so no need to overclock it per se), with a turbo boost let's say at 4.5 to 5GHz. So you'll end up getting +2 cores and a nice speed bump which would justify the crazy price (which of course won't cost them anything since increasing the frequency is free. They won't change the die of the chip or anything)
Maybe I'm a bit disappointed, that's all, seeing how things get more expensive. Nvidia is pushing the prices up year by year (a top GPU now costs 700 whereas in 2012 it used to cost 500,see 7970 GHz Edition or Geforce 680 in wikipedia) that goes to show how the new order of things will be.
But, on the other side, I'm more than happy that I decided to upgrade my rig a month ago. I bought two E5-2670 Xeons for 70$ each from eBay. They actually perform the same in cinebench with the new Broadwell-E (around 2000 points in R15)
If you already have 5820K, there is no point in 6800K. Same for the 8 core. I'd even consider refreshing a CPU, but if smaller node is the only benefit, I don't really care. If 8 core was the same price as old 6 core, now that would be pretty awesome and I'd grab it asap.
tbh looking at the performance the prices seem about right for server grade hardware.
intel_make_moar_coars.png
too bad I'm too lazy to actually shoop it, so use Your imagination \_:)_/
And yeah, $1700 for a 10 core, $1000 for an 8 core? Stupid crazy pricing. The 6 core 6800K at $449 is reasonable though. And should be able to clock it up nicely.
They also released an updated E5 10-core with fairly high frequency (ark.intel.com/products/91769/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2689-v4-25M-Cache-3_10-GHz).
It's 3.1 GHz and $2700 and that's a 165w part.
It's actually cheaper (by a bunch) to get a 12-core at 3.0GHz ($2100), likely because it's harvested from a die that starts at 15-core. Too bad Intel didn't just keep the 10-core and release an unlocked 12-core. But I guess that would have set a bad precedent when they get to Skylake-E.
Power consumption is nice and low, tho Broadwells always overclocked badly.
Team USA, get ur act together. Team Israel is schooling you in overclocking.
There doesn't seem to be much love for laptops in the news here, but the i3, i5 and i7 7xxxu series are being released soon in a number of brands.
Your not taking my money this time.