Computex 2017: The Intel Core i9 chip and Skylake-X CPUs are the chip maker’s answer to AMD Ryzen

At Computex 2017 , held in Taipei, Taiwan, Intel finally unveiled its counter to the threat posed by AMD’s Ryzen platform .

If we were to give a brief history of the CPU space in the personal computer (PC) market, we can summarise it as follows: Intel had a monopoly on the PC space since at least 2006 and nothing from only rival AMD has even come close to dethroning Intel. Intel allegedly took advantage of its position to keep the price of computing performance high. It wasn’t until AMD got its act together and released Ryzen, a new CPU that democratised computing power, that Intel started to get worried.

When it comes to computing performance, two things matter a great deal, core count and IPC efficiency. The latter relates to the efficiency with which each core can perform calculations.

With Ryzen, AMD doubled the core count compared to Intel’s offering in the same price range. This move, despite Ryzen’s lower IPC, suddenly resulted in customers having dramatically more computing power at their fingertips. Of course, there are some caveats , most notably with regards to Ryzen’s gaming performance, but these are being sorted out.

Intel enjoyed a monopoly for a long time, but it also did good work in that time. Intel’s processors are still the best overall option for most high-end consumers, but AMD wasn’t that far behind. High-end processors, especially in serious workstations and servers, is Intel’s core strength. It had to do something to counter Ryzen and it looks like Skylake-X and the Core i9 is the answer.

The Core i9 lineup looks like this:

Intel Core i9 7900X – 10C/20T @ 3.3 GHz (TurboBoost 3.0 up to 4.5 GHz) for $999 Intel Core i9 7920X – 12C/24T for $1,199 Intel Core i9 7940X – 14C/28T for $1,399 Intel Core i9 7960X – 16C/32T for $1,699 Intel Core i9 7980XE – 18C/36T for $1,999

Details of only the Core i9 7900X are available.

As it stands, the base model core i9 7900X will have 10 cores and 20 threads, operate from 3.3 GHz to 4.5 GHz and have a 140 W TDP. You’ll get 44 PCIe lanes and 13.75 MB of L3 cache as well. The 12-core model goes up to 165 W and the rest might be rated higher.

One can extrapolate on the specifications of the rest of the lineup based on this. The top of the line Core i9 7980XE is claimed to be the first CPU ever to cross the one teraflop mark.

Rounding off the Skylake-X lineup are the Intel i7-7800X and the i7 7820X. These are 6C/12T and 8C/16T parts clocked at 3.5 GHz and 3.6 GHz respectively. These will be priced at $389 and $599 respectively.

Also included in the lineup are two Kaby Lake X processors. These are the i5 7640X and the i7 7740X. Both of these are 4-core parts, where the i7 supports hyper-threading, which means that it supports 8 threads. These CPUs are priced at $242 and $339 respectively. These processors are rated at 112 W TDP.

As you can see, Intel hasn’t dropped the prices or increased the core counts on its mid-range and higher end processors.

These processes will be released on a new LGA-2066 socket, but it will apparently be backward compatible with the 2011 socket.

While all these processors are overclockable, the ace up Intel’s sleeve is that the cores on Skylake-X at the very least can be individually overclocked. This is something that AMD can’t do yet.

Oh, and did we mention that Skylake-X will come with a bundled liquid cooler? At that asking price, Intel had better provide one anyway.

For now, let the information sink in. We’re getting a brand new processor lineup and a slightly revamped architecture. We’ll delve into the details of the new CPUs at a later date.

Until then, be sure you stay tuned for more of our coverage on Computex 2017 .