Monday, September 25th 2017
Intel Announces Availability of Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X
Intel expanded the upper end of its Core X "Skylake-X" HEDT processor family, with the introduction of the Core i9-7980XE 18-core flagship processor, and the i9-7960X 16-core processor. Designed to give pro-sumers and PC enthusiasts extreme mega-tasking performance, the i9-7980XE features all components physically present on the 14 nm "Skylake-X" silicon, featuring 18 cores, with HyperThreading enabling 36 threads; 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per core, 24.75 MB of shared L3 cache, and rather restrained clock speeds of 2.60 GHz, with Turbo Boost speeds of 4.20 GHz, and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequency of 4.40 GHz.
Despite its gargantuan core-count, the TDP of this chip is rated at 165W, lower than the 180W rated for competing Ryzen Threadripper processors. The other high-end processor launched by Intel is the Core i9-7960X. This 16-core/32-thread chip features clock speeds of 2.80 GHz, with 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost, and 4.40 GHz Turbo Boost Max 3.0. It features 22 MB of shared L3 cache, and 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per core. The Core i9-7980XE is priced at USD $1,999 in the retail channel; while the Core i9-7960X goes for $1,699.
Despite its gargantuan core-count, the TDP of this chip is rated at 165W, lower than the 180W rated for competing Ryzen Threadripper processors. The other high-end processor launched by Intel is the Core i9-7960X. This 16-core/32-thread chip features clock speeds of 2.80 GHz, with 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost, and 4.40 GHz Turbo Boost Max 3.0. It features 22 MB of shared L3 cache, and 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per core. The Core i9-7980XE is priced at USD $1,999 in the retail channel; while the Core i9-7960X goes for $1,699.
11 Comments on Intel Announces Availability of Core i9-7980XE and Core i9-7960X
www.anandtech.com/show/11839/intel-core-i9-7980xe-and-core-i9-7960x-review/3
and XCC CPUs, and decided to target that market with TR. TR was NEVER part of the plan back then; it has 100% a reaction to Intel. So threadripper wasn't even part of AMD's plan until after Computex 2016 (which is held in June). Which was only shortly before SkyLake-E was originally going to launch. So, yeah, Intel held it back a bit, to improve it. But it wasn't reactionary to AMD at all.. AMD didn't even have any real plans for TR yet. they also said that they had only been working on it for a year, prior, so they knew already that Intel has these HCC CPUs coming... it was in Intel's roadmaps, after all. So AMD pulled the launch ahead, in reaction to Intel!!! And now today we see many "enthusiasts" doing the AMD hype train, like they did before. Perhaps some of these enthusiasts here on TPU even are AMD employees in disguise?
And here's some surprising honesty: So AMD knew they could not be the top dog, always, and never aimed to.
See here:
www.forbes.com/sites/antonyleather/2017/09/05/amd-ryzen-threadripper-the-fascinating-story-behind-the-processor-that-beat-intel/#34c2ca4b230c
Skylake-X engineering samples of up to 18 cores were sent out for testing last year, so this was planned way before the release of Ryzen and Threadripper. The chip was planned ~2.5-3 years ago.
If they delayed such as you have said, they actually did AMD a huge favor by giving AMD more time to released their Zen core design. We all heard about when the design was done... so maybe it was a favor to an individual, even... nobody knows.