Intel finally has a lot of details to share about its most powerful chip offering, the new Core i9 series that also happens to be the most powerful they have ever come up with.
As things stand at the moment, the Core i9-7980XE Extreme Edition chip features 18 physical cores and 36 threads. That easily supersedes the Core i9-7900X that comes with 10 cores and 20 thread.
The Core i9-7980XE again will have a base clock speed of 2.6 GHz, which however isn’t anything to be too excited of. But then again, the chip is also designed to reach clock speeds of 4.2 GHz in Turbo mode or an even higher 4.4 GHz in single thread workload conditions.
Other salient features of the Core i9-7980XE include its 24.75 MB of L3 cache memory, which again is the highest to be seen on any Core X family of chips. Further, the 7980XE also boasts of 44 PCIe lanes (all the Core i9 family of chips have 44 PCI express 3.0 lanes) and 165W TDP. All of the above comes for a price of course, and that stands at $1,999.
Compare that to the AMD Threadripper 1950X which boasts of 16 cores but is priced a much more affordable $999. That is a full $1000 less than the 7980XE.
While the Core i9-7980XE will be the most powerful, others in the Core i9 family include Core i9-7920X, 7940X, and 7960X in increasing order of performance. Of these, the entry level Core i9-7920X will be hitting store shelves starting Aug 28 itself though the other won’t be a market reality before September 25.
Coming to the individual chipsets, the 7920X has a base clock speed of 2.9 GHz and comes with 12 cores and 24 threads. It boasts of an L3 cache memory of 16.5 MB along with 44 PCI express 3.0 lanes and is priced at $1,199.
Next up is the 7940X that has a base clock speed of 3.1 GHz and comes with 14 cores and 28 threads. It comes with an L3 cache memory of 19.25 MB and is priced $1,399.
Intel’s new Core i9-7900X processor is for performance freaks
The higher 7960X has a clock speed of 2.8 GHz which is lower than its lesser capable siblings but boasts of 16 cores and 32 threads. It has a L3 cache memory of 22 MB and comes for $1,699.
Also, while the prices should be indicative of the capabilities of the Core i9 series chipsets, it, however, is significantly higher when compared to the AMD Threadripper 1950X. True, there are two cores less on the AMD offering but the price is lower by several counts.
