Having hit a wall with fab process-assisted micro-architecture advancements, and facing an unexpectedly competitive AMD, there's only one direction left for Intel's product development over generations, core-counts. The company is on the verge of introducing 6-core/12-thread "Coffee Lake" processors to the mainstream-desktop (MSDT) platform in a few weeks from now; and if leaks by a popular BTO desktop-replacement/mobile-workstation manufacturer Eurocom is to be believed, the company could increase the core counts a second time in 2018, by introducing an 8-core/16-thread MSDT part.

A Eurocom representative, posting on NotebookReview forums, hinted at the possibility that the upcoming Intel Z390 Express chipset, which hits motherboards in 2018, could exclusively support 8-core/16-thread processors, which come out in the second half of 2018. The representative revealed this in context of the company skipping the Z370 Express chipset, as it lacks support for those upcoming 8-core/16-thread chips. In addition to support for new processors and possibly next-generation "Ice Lake" processors, the Z390 chipset adds several new features over the Z370, including a better onboard audio solution, integrated WLAN, and SDIO controller.