It seems the war clouds are gathering and a showdown between Intel and AMD is imminent. At stake will be the highly lucrative high-end PC gaming chip market. While a new Core-i9 chip built on the Skylake-X platform will likely be Intel’s contender for the hot seat, AMD too is believed to be readying the new Whitehaven platform that might include Ryzen 9 range of chips.
AMD’s recent move to launch the Ryzen 7, 5, and 3 chips is what acted as the trigger point. The chip allows for the same levels of performance as corresponding offerings from the Intel camp, but at a considerably lower price point. The company though is yet to acknowledge they have any ambitions beyond the Ryzen 7.
That, however, isn’t stopping Intel to head back to the drawing board and the game of one-upmanship is well underway. For according to an internal documentation outlining its future chip releases that got leaked online, Intel has some heavy duty chipsets in the making that could unsettle AMD’s Ryzen range.
Of course, Intel isn’t confirming any of these either but there are reports the company could be working on the Skylake X chips. Joining the range would be the Kaby Lake X chip at a later date.
Experts though opine that the Skylake X chips would be positioned in the same segment as the Intel HEDT (high-end desktop) range did in the past.
As per the leaked presentation, the i9 will be starting at hexacore/12 threaded i9-7800X, before going all the way up to a 12 core/24 threaded i9-7920X. It is not known though what would be the clock speed of the i9-7920X.
Here is what Intel’s leaked internal document revealed of the forthcoming high-end chips.
Core i9-7920X
12C/24T, 16.5MB L3, 44 PCIe lanes, Clocks TBD (August Launch)
Core i9-7900X
10C/20T, 13.75MB L3, 44 PCIe Lanes, 3.3Ghz Base, 4.3Ghz Turbo 2.0, 4.5Ghz Turbo 3.0
Core i9-7820X
8C/16T, 11MB L3, 28 PCIe Lanes, 3.6Ghz Base, 4.3Ghz Turbo 2.0, 4.5Ghz Turbo 3.0
Core i9-7800X
6C/12T, 8.25MB L3, 28 PCIe Lanes, 3.5Ghz Base, 4.0Ghz Turbo 2.0
Core i7-7740K
4C/8T, 8MB L3, 16 PCIe Lanes, 4.3Ghz Base, 4.5Ghz Turbo 2.0
The new chipsets, however, aren’t likely to be revealed before August. Maybe Intel would take to the Computex event to do that.
