Intel Core "Coffee Lake" Availability Scarce Until 2018: Report

[btarunr]

Intel's 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" 6-core processors aim to restore the company's competitiveness in the mainstream-desktop (MSDT) platform, which eroded to AMD's unexpectedly successful Ryzen. The chips will hit the stores a little later this month, at price-points very close to the outgoing 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processors; although a report by SweClockers predicts that the chips will be scarcely available until early-2018.

Intel is launching "Coffee Lake" desktop processor family with a rather trimmed down lineup of six SKUs, two each under the Core i7, Core i5, and Core i3 brands, with the former two being 6-core, and the Core i3 being quad-core, marking an increase in core-counts across the board. While these chips will very much be available on launch-date in the retail channel, there could be an inventory shortage running all the way till Q1-2018.



Q1-2018 is particularly interesting, as that's when AMD is expected to launch its 2nd generation Ryzen processors, based on its new 12 nm "Pinnacle Ridge" silicon. This is expected to be an optical-shrink of the current "Summit Ridge" / "Zeppelin" die to GlobalFoundries' latest 12 nm node, which will allow AMD to increase clock speeds across the board at minimal power/thermal cost, restoring competitiveness lost to "Coffee Lake."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Chaitanya]

expected, it always has been the case for last few generations. It takes atleast a quarter for stocks of new CPUs to be available in good quantities and for the retailers to stop price gouging due to demand.

 

[drade]

Here I am wanting to upgrade to coffee lake and now I have to worry about stocking issues? I am not going to play into price gouging and spend 400+ on an i7. If Intel doesn't provide sufficient stock to retailers, by the time stock is consistently available at the release price point, new Zen will be out.

Ugh.

 

[birdie]

Intel's 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" 6-core processors aim to restore the company's competitiveness in the mainstream-desktop (MSDT) platform, which eroded to AMD's unexpectedly successful Ryzen.

I thought this was a news web site, not "we're AMD's fanboys" website.

Also, as much as people love to tout Zen CPUs, their IPC is not yet there, their OC'bility is nowhere and their top frequences are lacking. If you're not in a content creation business, you'll be better served by Intel.

 

[Aldain]

I thought this was a news web site, not "we're AMD's fanboys" website.

Also, as much as people love to tout Zen CPUs, their IPC is not yet there, their OC'bility is nowhere and their top frequences are lacking. If you're not in a content creation business, you'll be better served by Intel.

I am sorry the 1600x is 5 percent slower vs the 7700k in games even though it has 1GHZ deficit

 

[Hood]

Here I am wanting to upgrade to coffee lake and now I have to worry about stocking issues? I am not going to play into price gouging and spend 400+ on an i7. If Intel doesn't provide sufficient stock to retailers, by the time stock is consistently available at the release price point, new Zen will be out.

Ugh.

This is just a rumor from SweClockers.com, based on a couple of Swedish retailers who say "the availability of Intel Coffee Lake is low on launch day and that they only get a "handful of". In addition, one of SweClocker's contacts speaks that no Nordic distributor received the unlocked Core i7-8700K, Core i5-8600K, and Core i3-8350K without launching sales with the locked sibling models Core i7-8700, Core i5-8400 and Core i3- 8100th". So this is probably click-bait, or an attempt to boost initial sales, or an excuse to price gouge. @btarunr - reporting this is fine, but your headline implies that this is carved in stone, when it's only an unsubstantiated rumor. Read the 2nd sentence - no Nordic distributor recieved the "K" unlocked models WITHOUT launching sales of the locked models. Seems more like a problem with "Nordic distributors" than with Intel's supply chain.

 

[Deleted member 172152]

Will ryzen @4ghz bottleneck 1080 (ti) or vega @1660mhz noticeably at 1440p with g-sync/freesync? Might not be able to get 8700k or even 8600k if this is true and I can always upgrade to the next zen cpu and x470 later I suppose, so ryzen might be my best bet.

 

[dj-electric]

I am not aware of any stock issues of these. This is very odd

 

[Deleted member 172152]

I am not aware of any stock issues of these. This is very odd

Fingers crossed. 8700k would definitely be better for gaming than 1700 at 4ghz and I don't want to have to upgrade next year already. Might as well get an entirely new system with vega 20 or pascal refresh/volta gpu then.

 

[xkm1948]

Mainstream hex core from Intel is good. Especially since Intel still have the edge of IPC

 

[StrayKAT]

Pardon my ignorance - and maybe relevance - but I don't understand why they're pushing two (OC'able) chipsets? What's the main difference with x299?

 

[Durvelle27]

Pardon my ignorance - and maybe relevance - but I don't understand why they're pushing two (OC'able) chipsets? What's the main difference with x299?

X299 is HEDT

Quad Channel RAM
More PCIe Lanes
Features that lack some companies may need
Etc....

 

[bug]

Here I am wanting to upgrade to coffee lake and now I have to worry about stocking issues? I am not going to play into price gouging and spend 400+ on an i7. If Intel doesn't provide sufficient stock to retailers, by the time stock is consistently available at the release price point, new Zen will be out.

Ugh.

They can't price gouge because Ryzens (pun intended).

 

[Hood]

Pardon my ignorance - and maybe relevance - but I don't understand why they're pushing two (OC'able) chipsets? What's the main difference with x299?

OC by unlocked CPU multiplier has been available since P67/X79 (both launched in 2011), on mainstream and HEDT. Before that, overclocking was done by raising the base clock, which also raised all the other frequencies (RAM, chipset, PCI, etc) making high CPU clocks difficult without causing system instability. In 2011, Intel introduced unlocked multipliers due to popular demand from enthusiasts, making it somewhat easier to keep the system stable under higher overclocks.

 

[StrayKAT]

OC by unlocked CPU multiplier has been available since P67/X79 (both launched in 2011), on mainstream and HEDT. Before that, overclocking was done by raising the base clock, which also raised all the other frequencies (RAM, chipset, PCI, etc) making high CPU clocks difficult without causing system instability. In 2011, Intel introduced unlocked multipliers due to popular demand from enthusiasts, making it somewhat easier to keep the system stable under higher overclocks.

What I meant was the last crop had 270 and 250. Now it looks like it'll be x299 and x370, which both seem oriented towards enthusiasts/gamers/overlocking/etc.. It just seemed like there's a little more overlap.

But the other poster answer my question about HEDT.. although I'm not even sure what difference that really makes either.

 

[Raendor]

I am sorry the 1600x is 5 percent slower vs the 7700k in games even though it has 1GHZ deficit

Lol, 1600x is much slower than 5% in gaming. The difference is very evident in high-fos games like bf1 and even gta v, where you can easily see 20-30 feos less on ryzen.

 

[Xzibit]

Lol, 1600x is much slower than 5% in gaming. The difference is very evident in high-fos games like bf1 and even gta v, where you can easily see 20-30 feos less on ryzen.

 

[Durvelle27]

Lol, 1600x is much slower than 5% in gaming. The difference is very evident in high-fos games like bf1 and even gta v, where you can easily see 20-30 feos less on ryzen.

Proof as I have yet to see that

 

[drade]

Lol, 1600x is much slower than 5% in gaming. The difference is very evident in high-fos games like bf1 and even gta v, where you can easily see 20-30 feos less on ryzen.

That's actually completely false. Look above. 20-30 fps less on ryzen? Really? lol.

 

[ppn]

The current price of DDR4 makes the total platform less desirable.

 

[Hood]

What I meant was the last crop had 270 and 250. Now it looks like it'll be x299 and x370, which both seem oriented towards enthusiasts/gamers/overlocking/etc.. It just seemed like there's a little more overlap.

Value oriented Intel chipsets are always released later, after the mainstream enthusiast chipsets (Z170/270/370).

 

[FeelinFroggy]

I am sorry the 1600x is 5 percent slower vs the 7700k in games even though it has 1GHZ deficit

I am afraid you are mistaken. The 7700k gets an average of 20% more fps in games than the 1600x.

Here is a review from 2 months ago. Look at the graphs.

http://www.pcgamer.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-1950x-1920x-review/

 

[StrayKAT]

Value oriented Intel chipsets are always released later, after the mainstream enthusiast chipsets (Z170/270/370).

I get that. I'm just more confused why there are two "enthusiast" chipsets now (last time around, it was the 270.. but no "x199". They skipped all the way from x99 to x299).

Ugh.. Oh well. I feel like I'm just confusing things even more.

 

[Xzibit]

I am afraid you are mistaken. The 7700k gets an average of 20% more fps in games than the 1600x.

Here is a review from 2 months ago. Look at the graphs.

http://www.pcgamer.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-1950x-1920x-review/

Might want to link to the proper one

PCGamer - AMD Ryzen 5, bringing competition to the mainstream

 

[dicktracy]

You're hitting a GPU bottleneck with a GTX 1080.
Here's an average of many games (to remove bias) with a GTX 1080ti:

Ryzen already bottlenecks a 1080ti. And what happens when Volta comes out? You'll need that Coffee Lake medication to keep up.