Update: After our story went live Intel decided to lift the embargo, which was originally scheduled for October 7th.

Intel announces Cascade Lake-X

Original story: Next week Intel is launching its high-end desktop 10th Gen Core-X series. The processors codenamed Cascade Lake-X will utilize Skylake architecture manufactured using 14nm process technology.

Much cheaper, but not cheap

The most important news is that the Intel Core-X series will much cheaper than the previous generation. The cost of a single-core will drop to AMD’s level and therefore it will be comparable to Threadripper 2000. The price per single core will drop to 54-59 USD depending on the SKU, while the last generation was starting at 99 USD.

Faster memory, more memory

The 10th generation supports quad-channel DDR4-2933 memory, the same as Threadripper 2000. The capacity, however, increased to 256GB, which is twice as much as both SKL-X and TR2000.

Clocks

This is not the time or the place to discuss the differences between each clock type, but let us just give you a list of what customers need to go through before opening their wallets: base clocks, boost blocks, turbo clocks, single-core clocks, all-core clocks, AMD’s Max Boost, Intel Turbo Boost 2.0, Intel Turbo Boost Max 3.0 and Intel Velocity Boost. And guess what, Intel is adding yet another clock called Deep Learning Boost. Why? We don’t know and this point we don’t what to know. The clock advertised by Intel on a highlight slide is the Turbo Boost Max 3.0, which goes up to 4.8 GHz.

Other stuff

The new series also support Intel Performance Maximizer, 2.5G Intel i225 Ethernet and Wi-Fi 6. The whole 10th Gen Core platform will support up to PCIe 72 lanes. The new CPUs will be available for sale in November.

2019 HEDT Platforms VideoCardz.com Intel Core-X 10000 Series Intel Core-X 9000 Series AMD TR 2000 Series AMD TR 3000 Series Architecture 14nm Skylake 14nm Skylake 12nm Zen+ 7nm Zen2 Codename Casacade Lake-X Skylake-X Refresh Colfax Castle Peak Socket LGA2066 LGA2066 TR4 TBD Motherboards X299X/X299 X299 X399 TRX40/TRX80 Memory Support 4C DDR4-2933 4C DDR4-2666 4C DDR4-2933 TBD Maximum Memory 256 GB 128 GB 128 GB TBD Max PCIe Lanes (Chip+CPU) 72 (? + ?) 68 (24+44) 64 (4 + 60) TBD Average Cost Per Core 57 USD / Core 103 USD / Core 55 USD / Core TBD

The following chart compares current HEDT generations with upcoming 10th Gen Core-X series:

2019 HEDT Processors VideoCardz.com Cores/Threads Base Clock Intel Turbo 2.0 /

AMD Max Boost Intel Turbo 3.0 /

All Core Turbo TDP MSRP

(1K Units) Intel 10th Gen Core X-Series HEDT (Cascade Lake-X) Core i9-10980XE 18/36 3.0 GHz 4.6 GHz 4.8/3.8 GHz 165W 979 USD Core i9-10940XE 14/28 3.3 GHz 4.6 GHz 4.8/4.1 GHz 165W 784 USD Core i9-10920XE 12/24 3.5 GHz 4.6 GHz 4.8/4.3 GHz 165W 689 USD Core i9-10900XE 10/20 3.7 GHz 4.5 GHz 4.7/4.3 GHz 165W 590 USD Intel 9th Gen Core X-Series HEDT (Skylake X-Refresh) Core i9-9980XE 18/36 3.0 GHz 4.4 GHz 4.5/nd GHz 165W 1,979 USD Core i9-9960X 16/32 3.1 GHz 4.4 GHz 4.5/nd GHz 165W 1,684 USD Core i9-9940X 14/28 3.3 GHz 4.4 GHz 4.5/nd GHz 165W 1,387 USD Core i9-9920X 12/24 3.5 GHz 4.4 GHz 4.5/nd GHz 165W 1,189 USD Core i9-9900X 10/20 3.5 GHz 4.4 GHz 4.5/nd GHz 165W 989 USD AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2000 HEDT (Colfax) TR 2990WX 32/64 3.0 GHz 4.2 GHz no data 250W 1,799 USD TR 2970WX 24/48 3.0 GHz 4.2 GHz no data 250W 1,299 USD TR 2950X 16/32 3.5 GHz 4.4 GHz no data 180W 899 USD TR 2920X 12/24 3.5 GHz 4.3 GHz no data 180W 649 USD