As an owner of an X99 system, I don't think it's as stupid as some think.
All fair and well OC'ing a 5820K to reach Skylake/Kaby Lake single core speeds, but an OC'd X99 chip is well known for producing the occasional blue screen of death under heavy load, stable or not (see whea_uncorrectable_error). Then there's the massive increase in power consumption for it.
I've also had trouble on my X99-S board getting the faster M.2 drives to function properly, particularly the Samsung SM951, and I hate the X99 memory training every time the system boots up (due to quad channel). It's something you can turn off granted, but it's not advisable. Speaking of which, it doesn't like those XMP profiles much with the faster speeds. The newer motherboards work flawlessly with quicker memory.
The X99 boards also don't have native USB3.1, at least the ones from 2014/2015.
I could pick all kinds of holes in it, but if i'm being brutally honest unless you are rendering, the X99 platform is a complete waste of space. I naively went from an i5-2400 to an i7-5820K expecting silly speed increases, how wrong was I. Outside of going from a 270x to a 980ti, the only real noteworthy upgrade i've stuck in my computer over the last decade was an SSD.
That's because people overclock too much X99. Some of them keep processors 1000MHz overclocked. 8 cores even 1000+ MHz.
I thin perfect speed for i7-5820K is up to 4.2GHz. Better to overclock up to 1.200-1.250V and less chance for degradation.
I kept i7-5820K first on 4.0GHz, that's nothing for him, he worked on stock voltage, performance are 20% better on 4.0GHz.
Now I increase voltage to 1.200V both Core and Cache and Change settings to 4.2/4.0GHz and I will keep like that constantly.
Maybe and my processor could work on 4.5GHz on 1.300-1.350V but I didn't push him, this is enough until Intel X299.
Even if Intel fail with LGA2066, people with X99 have enough performance to wait Intel to develope completely new gen or eventually to think about AM4 1800X.
But if Intel launch something good than I expect X299 to be great platform. Rumors say Skylake-E up to 10 cores and Kaby Lake-E 4 cores. That mean maybe people could choose between processor for multi threaded application and CPU with 4 cores but high frequency, on same chipset. Maybe is not bad idea. But everything is in vain if Intel ask more than 300-350 for 1700X competition and more than 500-550 for 1800X competition. Higher power consumption, more expensive motherboards, many customers will turn to AMD in that case.
Intel must beat 1800X for same price, no matter how, 6 or 8 cores.
For me is X99 platform best after X58. X58 was best investment and for most people best platform in life. People still use Xeons and i7-980X. Many customers both i7-920 and later upgrade to i7-980X. Only X99 is in shadow of AMD now, but without AMD that would be premium platform 2014-2015-2016 and now is 2017. In August 2014 Intel present i7-5820K and ASUS Rampage V Extreme, they are still premium Intel platform and X99 will stay attractive and capable to keep high end hardware up to 2020. That's long life time. People have many options, price of used 8 and 10 cores will rapidly drop after Intel launch X299. Maybe Intel keep their price on Amazon and Newegg, but i7-6950X will cost soon 500$ and no one will pay single dollar over that, special if Intel move little more with LGA2066. i7-6900K and i7-6950X if replace i7-5820K and i7-5930K could seriously to prolongue life time of X99. Owners could freely to invest in some watercooling and no reason to change chipset. Not even on X299.
Overclocked i7-6900K with Cache on 4.0GHz and clock on 4.2GHz is better than best AMD option, CPU and Memory results. And owners of X99 could continue to use 3 years old platform. Only problem is Intel's price. Intel could stay competitive and with so strong AMD, only price is problem.
Their answer should be changing price on X79 level, i7-6900K to cost as i7-4930K and i7-6950X as i7-4960X, I7-6850K same as mainstream generation and i7-6800K 200$ budget variant and Intel is in game again. He dominate in memory even with 2666-3200MHz copy-write-read performance as well. Extraction, unpacking, everything is faster on X99 with overclocked Cache + Core, premium motherboards with better VRM and power section, more options.
