Intel announced a new family of processors at Computex, an information technology show that held in Taipei on the 30th of May 2017. If you’ve been using PCs long enough, you should be used to the different generations of Intel processors, from the now obsolete Intel Celeron to Intel Pentium, and then to the more popular INTEL® Core™ i3, i5 and i7.
The silicon giant is out with the new Intel® Core™ X-series processor group, alongside a brand-new Intel® Core™ i9 processor which promises superb performance for advanced gaming, VR and content creation.. There’s also the new Intel® Core™ i9 Extreme Edition processor – the first consumer desktop CPU with 18 Core™ s and 36 threads.
The nine new processors are split into KabyLake-X and Skylake-X architectures. There’s two base KabyLake-X parts, the Core™ i5-7640X and the Core™ i7-7740X, and Skylake Core™ i7-7820X. There is also the Core™ i9-7900X, which has 10 Cores and 20 threads with Hyper threading. Users can also choose from 4 Cores to 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 to 18 Core™ s, making it one of the most diverse range on the market, and all models come with Hyper threading.
The new processors have speeds ranging from 3.3 GHZ to 4.5GHZ using Intel’s new Turbo Boost 3.0 technology. The Core i9 family also includes the i9-7920X, i9-7940X, i9-7960X, and i9-7980XE.
According to Intel, the Core™ X series is aimed at professionals and gaming enthusiasts. The processors support dual-channel (KabyLake-X) and quad channel DDR4 memory and are a great fit for a wide range of needs such as 12K gaming and video editing, enhanced VR support using multiple discrete GPUs and displays.
Pricing for the new processors starts at $242 for Intel® Core™ i5-7640X (4 Cores, 4 threads) and goes all the way to $1699 for Intel® Core™ i9-7960X (16 Cores, 32 threads), and $1999 for the Core™ i9-7980XE (18 Cores, 36 threads).