A teraflop of performance in an Intel desktop CPU? Yes, please.
You'll need to shell out handsomely to get it, but Intel's new Core X processor family, unveiled on Tuesday, is designed to handle any task an extreme gamer or video editor can throw at it. Its flagship is the Intel Core i9 7980X Extreme Edition, which boasts 18 cores and and 36 threads. That chip will retail for $1,999, while the base Intel Core i5-7640X goes for $242.
In between are seven new processors, and in a bit of a departure from recent Core CPU lineups, each one offers a different core count, base clock speed, and Turbo Boost version. As you step up the price ladder, each rung adds two processor cores and four threads, topping out at 16 cores and 32 threads for the Intel Core i9-7960X, which retails for $1,699.
The more expensive the processor, the slower the clock speed too, at least in the initial tiers. That's due in part to Intel's improved Turbo Boost technology, which is designed to maximize both single-core and dual-core performance by choosing a "favored core" for each processing task. That means if you opt for the Intel Core i7-7740X, you'll get a 4.3GHz base clock speed that can increase to 4.5GHz thanks to Turbo Boost, while the Intel Core i9-7900X offers a base clock speed of 3.3GHz that can be boosted to either 4.3GHz or 4.5GHz thanks to the favored core selection.
It's worth noting that we don't have availability details for each new processor SKU yet, nor did Intel announce the clock speeds or other specs of the Extreme Edition or the other top-of-the line Core i9 X-series CPUs. Still, the applications for the Core i9-series are clear: simultaneous video editing workloads like transcoding a file while you edit another one, or creating high-resolution graphics for use in virtual reality or 4K games.
If you've been waiting for chips that will let you perform these tasks and you have the budget to spend what amounts to $100 per processor core, you'll want to pore over the product sheets for more on the new Core X lineup. But many people will end up comparing the SKUs that Intel announced today with their AMD Ryzen equivalents. In some of the matchups, as Anandtech notes, the Ryzen chips come in a generation behind in terms of performance but significantly cheaper.
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