Intel formally introduced its Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X processor lineup at Computex last month, but at the time it didn't say anything about a specific release date. It turns out that Intel was waiting for E3 to announce availability. Starting on June 19 (this coming Monday), some of Intel's Core-X series CPUs will be available to preorder.
The announcement is mentioned in a press release covering a range of topics at E3. In it, Intel says it will make available 4-core, 6-core, 8-core, and 10-core to preorder on June 19 with shipments commencing the following week. According to Anandtech, Intel pointed out in its presentation at E3 that shipments would specifically fall on June 26.
Intel said the rest of its Core X-series lineup will "soon follow," with its 12-core Core i9-7920X arriving sometime in August and its 14-core Core i9-7940X, 16-core Core i9-7960X, and 18-core Core i9-7980X—all of which are Extreme Edition SKUs—expected to ship in October.
Looking at Intel's June lineup, here is what will be available to purchase this month from its Core-X series family:
- Core i5-7640X: 4C/4T, 4GHz-4.2GHz, 6MB cache, 16 PCIe lanes—$242
- Core i7-7740X: 4C/8T, 4.3GHz-4.5GHz, 8MB cache, 16 PCIe lanes—$339
- Core i7-7800X: 6C/12T, 3.5GHz-4GHz, 8.25MB cache, 28 PCIe lanes—$389
- Core i7-7820X: 8C/16T, 3.6GHz-4.3GHz, 11MB cache, 28 PCIe lanes—$599
- Core i9-7900X: 10C/20T, 3.3GHz-4.5GHz, 13.75MB cache, 44 PCIe lanes—$999
Both of the quad-core CPUs—Core i5-7640X and Core i7-7740X—are Kaby Lake-X processors, while the other three parts are Skylake-X chips. Beyond more cores, threads, and cache, the Skylake-X CPUs add more PCIe lanes to play with, which can be helpful when installing multiple graphics cards and NVMe SSDs. However, you're looking at spending around a grand for access to 44 PCIe lanes, whereas all of AMD's entire Threadripper lineup has 64 PCIe lanes.
Looking beyond June, Intel will release additional Core i9 processors culminating with the Core i9-7980XE priced at $1,999. It is a monster chip with 18 cores and 36 threads, though other details such as clockspeeds and cache have not yet been announced.
For gamers who want an enthusiast CPU, the Core i7-7800X might be the most intriguing option, or perhaps the best bang-for-buck. Especially so if there's some overclocking headroom.
