Adding to Alienware's staple of custom-built PCs and their exclusivity deal with AMD to sell pre-built machines with Ryzen Threadripper 16-core CPUs, the company has just announced that their Area 51 desktop solution will now also be available with Intel's latest X299 HEDT platform. Intel Core X-series processors can be configured with a Core i7-7800X, i7-7820X, or i9-7900X processor, and liquid cooling comes standard with the system for these high-performance CPUs. Alienware even ships the Area 51 with an unlocked BIOS so that users can still tap all of the potential inside their new gaming rig.

Kingston's HyperX 2933 MHz memory comes standard (up to 64 GB in 4x 16 GB configuration), and the graphics processing can be configured with either AMD (RX 560, 570, and 580) or NVIDIA cards (GTX 1050 Ti, GTX 1060 (6GB), GTX 1070, GTX 1080 or GTX 1080 Ti.) The absence of AMD's Vega graphics cards should come as a surprise for red-team fans. There are also dual and triple-GPU configurations available, though with the slow, choking death of multi-GPU support, that might not be the best inroad for a high performance computer. A 2 TB HDD takes care of storage, and SSD goodness can come in 256, 512 GB, or 1 TB in the M.2 form-factor. There's Intel Optane support (in 16 GB or 32 GB), and the power supply can range from an 850 W unit up to a 1500 W one. There is a total of 8x USB 3.0 ports (2x front, 6x rear) and 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (1x Type-A, 1x Type-C). Dual gigabit LAN is provided by a Qualcomm Killer E2500 NIC, while wireless connectivity is available in the form of Killer 1535 or Dell 1820 802.11ac WiFi.

AMD today officially announced some more details on its brain-child and market-stormer Ryzen Threadripper HEDT line of CPUs. Ryzen is a true new stand-alone architecture for AMD, the result of more than four years of careful planning and silicon design towards reaching a truly scalable, highly-flexible, non-glued together MCM design that could power all experiences and workloads through a single architecture design. The Ryzen architecture is already powering desktops with Ryzen 3, 5 and 7 desktop CPUs; has extended to server-side deployments through its EPYC line-up and will begin shipping for professionals with Ryzen PRO starting in Q3 2017. Also announced was that it will find its way to mobile APUs around Q4, paired with the new Vega graphics microarchitecture; and will even power professional-geared mobile solutions in 1H18. But more immediately, it's coming to the HEDT market. And AMD is putting that fight in the hands of Threadripper.

AMD pits its HEDT line-up to developers, researchers, prosumers, creators, and even multi-tasking gamers. Increased compute capabilities with up to 16 cores and 32 threads; larger memory footprint, increased I/O and storage, and support for many more GPUs and PCIe lanes ensure a stable, impressive platform for today's large data sets and tomorrow's exponentially more resource-intensive workloads. AMD will execute this with a three-pronged approach. There will be three processor models on offer for their HEDT platform. The $999 TR 1950X and $799 TR 1920X are known quantities already, with their respective 16 cores (32 threads) and 12 cores (24 threads). The new addition, however, comes in the form of the $549 TR 1900X, which offers not only 8 cores (16 threads) and 3.8 GHz base, 4.0 GHz boost clocks, but a clear upgrade path within AMD's new platform. Say what you will about AMD's offerings and execution, one thing is for sure: Zen and all the silicon it powers have prompted a reshuffle of the CPU landscape as we hadn't seen in years. Coincidence? AMD doesn't think so.

Intel is preparing to tackle AMD's first Ryzen Threadripper parts with two Core "Skylake-X" HEDT socket LGA2066 processor launches in quick succession, over Q3-2017. The first one to come out will be the 12-core/24-thread Core i9-7920X; which will be closely followed by the 16-core/32-thread Core i9-7960X. The company will ultimately end 2017 with the 18-core/36-thread Core i9-7980XE. The i9-7920X, detailed in our older article, could either command a $200 premium over the $999 10-core/20-thread i9-7900X; or displace it to a slightly lower price-point (say, $800). The i9-7960X, however, could retain a premium price-point owing to performance leadership over the Ryzen Threadripper 1950X, if early benchmarks are to be believed.

The Core i9-7960X is endowed with 16 cores, HyperThreading enabling 32 threads, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 22 MB of shared L3 cache. It features the chip's full 44-lane PCI-Express gen 3.0 root complex, and a quad-channel DDR4 memory interface. The chip is expected to be clocked even lower than its 12-core sibling, with a nominal clock of a mere 2.50 GHz, and a yet unknown max Turbo Boost frequency. Put through Geekbench 4.1.0, the chip scored 33,672 points in the multi-threaded test, which is higher than the 27,000-ish scores we've been hearing of for the Threadripper 1950X; but a single-thread score of 5,238, which pales in comparison to that of the i7-7740X, due to the lower clock speeds, and a slightly older micro-architecture.

Intel has quietly revealed base clocks for their upcoming 12-core, 24-thread Core i9-7920X processor. This particular Intel model materializes (at least for now) the only 12-core processor in Intel's X299 HEDT platform line-up on the LGA 2066 socket. A report from Videocardz pegs the new 12-core processor as having a base clock of 2.9 GHz, a full 400 MHz slower than the company's 10-core, 20-thread i9-7900X. The L3 cache amount appears as well, though it's an expected 16.5 MB (which amounts to around 1.375 MB per core.)

The chip also brought a pricing confirmation for $1,189 in tray quantities (which means final consumer prices will be higher.) On paper, this doesn't trade favorably with the competition's 12-core Threadripper offering, where AMD will be offering the same amount of cores and threads for $799 (final consumer pricing at launch) with a much more impressive 3.5 GHz base clock. Consumers will say whether a $400 price difference for going Intel over AMD is worth it for the same number of cores and threads, though it remains to be seen whether AMD's frequency advantage will translate to performance while maintaining power consumption at acceptable levels (which, from what we've seen from AMD's Ryzen, should, in theory, be true.)

In a video presentation posted on the company's official YouTube channel, AMD CEO Lisa Su talked at length about the two new lines of Ryzen desktop processors the company plans to launch later this month. This includes the Ryzen Threadripper HEDT socket TR4 processor at the higher-end of the lineup, and the new Ryzen 3 series socket AM4 processors at the lower-end. AMD is announcing market-availability of two SKUs for each of the two brands. To begin with, AMD will launch two quad-core SKUs in the Ryzen 3 series, beginning with the Ryzen 3 1200 and the Ryzen 3 1300X. Both of these are quad-core parts which lack SMT, leaving them with just four threads. AMD is expected to price them on par with Intel's dual-core "Kaby Lake" Core i3 SKUs.

The Ryzen 3 1200 is clocked at 3.10 GHz, with 3.40 GHz boost, the 1300X is clocked higher, at 3.50 GHz, with 3.70 GHz boost, and XFR (extended frequency range) enabling higher clocks depending on the efficacy of your cooling. Both parts will be available worldwide on July 27. The Ryzen Threadripper HEDT processor lineup is designed to take Intel's Core X series head-on, and will launch with two SKUs, initially. This includes the 12-core Ryzen Threadripper 1920X, and the 16-core Ryzen Threadripper 1950X. Both parts further feature SMT and XFR. The 12-core/24-thread 1920X features clock speeds of 3.50 GHz, with 4.00 GHz boost; while the 16-core/32-thread 1950X ticks at 3.40 GHz, with 4.00 GHz boost. AMD also ran live demos of the Threadripper chips, in which the 12-core 1920X was shown to beat 10-core Intel Core i9-7900X at Cinebench R15 multi-threaded benchmark. The 16-core 1950X was shown to be close to 50% faster than the i9-7900X. The company also confirmed pricing.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today announced that its upcoming XPG SPECTRIX D40 RGB DDR4 has been certified compatible with ASUS AURA Sync software. This allows users of ASUS motherboards to personalize the RGB lighting elements built into D40 modules with choice of color range, lighting sequence, and more. SPECTRIX D40 modules have been optimized for the Intel X299 platform with a starting speed of 2666MHz. They are also compatible with AMD AM4 motherboards. Designed for gamers, overclockers, and case modders, SPECTRIX D40 DDR4 modules provide more options and customization features and support the trend towards builds that incorporate sophisticated RGB and LED.

HWBOT user sofos1990 took an Intel Core i9 CPU to party like it was the nineties, straddling it under a LN2 cooling chamber to achieve the enormous 6.01 GHz overclocked frequency (82.3% over stock clocks). The achieved score, at 12189.52 points, settles this run as the highest-scoring 10-core score ever, and also becomes the highest single-processor system score ever achieved in the platform. This was done under an extremely crispy 1.6 V processor vCore, though, so it definitely wasn't for the faint of heart.

Intel announced retail availability of its new Core X-series HEDT (high-end desktop) processors in the LGA2066 package, designed for motherboards based on the Intel X299 Express chipset. These include the 4-core/4-thread Core i5-7640X and 4-core/8-thread Core i7-7740X based on the "Kaby Lake-X" silicon; and 6-core/12-thread Core i7-7800X, 8-core/16-thread Core i7-7820X, and 10-core/20-thread Core i9-7900X chips based on the "Skylake-X" silicon. Compatible socket LGA2066 motherboards based on the X299 chipset began selling, too.

The Core i5-7640X features 4.00 GHz clocks with 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost, and 6 MB of L3 cache. The i7-7740X tops that with 4.30 GHz core and 4.50 GHz Turbo Boost out of the box, 8 MB of L3 cache, and HyperThreading. Both these chips feature just dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, meaning that you'll be able to use just four out of eight DIMM slots in most LGA2066 motherboards. The i5-7640X is priced at USD $242, while the i7-7740X goes for $339. These are the same prices at which you can buy the LGA1151 Core i5-7600K and i7-7700K, respectively, so an attempt is being made to transition all PC enthusiasts over to the HEDT platform.

An Intel Core i9-7900X has appeared for a full review at the site Hexus.net. Spoiler alert, it clocks to 4.7 GHz on all ten cores with relative ease (only taking 1.25 V, apparently, though it racked up nearly 100°C in Cinebench at that voltage).

The review praised Intel's overclocking headroom and general muscle in a mostly positive review. Still, not all is rosy in Intel land. They found performance per watt to not have improved much if at all, criticized the high price tag, and Hexus.net had the following to say about the overall experience:

"X299 motherboards don't appear to be quite ready, there are question marks surrounding the Skylake-X processors due later this year, and at the lower end of the Core X spectrum, Kaby Lake-X is nothing short of puzzling."

Intel announced the release schedule of its Core X HEDT (high-end desktop) processors and compatible socket LGA2066 motherboards. The first wave of Core X processors, which includes two quad-core SKUs, and one each of 6-core, 8-core, and 10-core (detailed in the table below); will be available from 26 June, 2017. Pre-orders for these chips will open from 19 June, on popular online stores. The first wave includes the quad-core Core i5-7640X, and Core i7-7740X "Kaby Lake-X;" six-core i7-7800X, eight-core i7-7820X, and ten-core i9-7900X "Skylake-X."

Intel plans to release the Core i9-7920X 12-core processor some time in August 2017, followed by 14-core, 16-core, and 18-core parts by October 2017. A large selection of compatible socket LGA2066 motherboards based on Intel X299 chipset, will be available for pre-order on 19 June, followed by retail availability from 26 June. With socket LGA2066 having a similar cooler mount-hole layout to the current LGA2011v3 socket, most current coolers which can cope with thermal loads of Core i7 "Broadwell-E" processors should be able to handle the Core X "Skylake-X" and "Kaby Lake-X" parts being launched this month.

Alienware and Dell head into this year's E3 with a triad of new PC gaming systems and components - high-end Alienware gaming desktops with new multi-core processor options, a full range of performance gaming monitors and peripherals with Alienware's signature design and a new Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop bringing VR to all. Alienware and Dell continue to demonstrate why, together, they have become a leading PC gaming brand worldwide with gaming solutions for players of all levels and budgets.

Driven by a fierce commitment to deliver what PC gamers want in gaming products and community, Alienware and Dell continues to make solid investments in PC gaming, virtual reality and esports through ever-expanding offerings and partnership innovation. This has stoked an incredible 17 consecutive quarters of PC growth*, continuously innovating with PC performance and designs, both in the realm of gaming, VR and beyond.

Now that Intel has officially rolled out its "Core-X" family based on the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs, overclocking of them has begun in earnest for those lucky few who have one in hand. As per usual, benchmarkers at the extreme end of the spectrum tend to shoot for the moon no holds barred, driven by the fumes of LN2 cooling. For one lucky i9-7900X owner calling himself "Elmor," he took his rightful place among the benchmarking stars, shattering the previous Cinebench world record for a 10-core chip with a very respectable 5.7GHz final clock. His score in Cinebench R15 was 3181, while Cinebench R11.5 scored 34.79.

If you had your eyes on those new Intel HEDT processors, which were posted just today with some... Interesting... price-points, you'll be a little miffed to know that Intel has gone on and done it again. The few cents per unit that soldering the CPU would add to the manufacturing costs of Intel's HEDT processors (starting at $999, tray-friendly prices) could definitely bring the blue giant to the red. As such, the company has decided to do away with solder even on its HEDT line of high-performance, eye-wateringly-expensive CPUs in favor of their dreaded TIM.

The news have been confirmed by der8auer, a renowned overclocker. And as you have probably seen in our own VSG's review (and if you haven't shame on you and click that link right away), delidding Intel's CPU's and ridding them of their TIM can improve temperatures by up to a staggering 21 ºC (case in point, an i7-7700K). And that's a quad-core CPU; imagine an Intel Core i9-7980XE 18-core processor sitting under that TIM, and overclocking it to boot. Those are more than four times the cores under an equally bad thermal interface; add to that the likely presence of a thermally-insulating air-gap, and you can imagine where this is going. If you are planning on going for Intel's HEDT platform, you better take those delidding tools off your shelf.

Update: Check this video here for some more information. Turns out both Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X will make use of the referred TIM, but Skylake-X dies, which make use of a stacked PCB, won't be deliddable with current tools. A new tool is going to be developed by der8auer alongside ASUS for these chips.

Creating rich, immersive experiences and bringing them to life takes a lot of compute power. Creators, gamers and enthusiasts have an insatiable demand for more power, more performance and more capability that lets them focus on what they want to do, not on whether their computer is up to the task. Intel is committed to continue giving them that extreme platform. Introducing the new Intel Core X-series processor family: Intel's most scalable, accessible and powerful desktop platform ever. Ranging from 4 to 18 cores, it offers unprecedented scalability. With price points to match, there is an Intel Core X-series processor that is sure to meet the needs for the widest range of enthusiast customers ever.

We're also introducing the entirely new Intel Core i9 processor brand, representing the highest performance for advanced gaming, VR and content creation. At the top of the lineup is the new Intel Core i9 Extreme Edition processor - the first consumer desktop CPU with 18 cores and 36 threads of power. Select SKUs of the Intel Core X-series processor family brings extreme performance to enthusiasts with Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 creating new levels of single-threaded and dual-threaded performance.

Videocardz is advancing an exclusive in that Intel seems to be about to introduce even more cores in a single package than previously thought. Intel's X299 platform, which we've just started officially started seeing some motherboards for (just scroll down on our news feed), looks to be the awakening of a slumbering giant. But you don't have to believe me on this: before we ever knew of AMD's Ryzen line of processors (much less about their Threadripper line), leaks on Intel's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors only showed core counts up to 10-cores - in line with previous Intel HEDT platforms (see below image.) Cue more recent leaks, and it would seem that Intel is increasing the core-counts on its upcoming platform on a daily basis - especially if the most recent leak referencing 14, 16 and 18-core parts pans out. (I am reminded of a "moar cores" meme that used to float around the web. Maybe one of you in the comments can find it for me?)

A new, leaked slide on Intel's X-series processors shows 18, 16, 14, and 12-core configurations as being available on the upcoming X299 platform, leveraging Intel's turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 (which is apparently only available on Intel's Core i9-7820X, 7900X, 7920X (which we know to be a 12-core part), 7940X (probably the 14-core), 7960X (16-core) and the punchline 7980XE 18-core processor, which should see a price as eye-watering as that name tumbles around on the tip of the tongue. There is also mention of a "Rebalanced Intel Smart Cache hierarchy". But you don't want me to be rambling on about this. You want to comment about this story. Feel free to partake in a joyous conversation over these news (I'll also leave you with a bonus picture of some purported, upcoming Intel X-series packaging efforts. They're certainly colorful.)

Disclaimer: It's currently unclear whether or not the majority of these are actual X299 motherboards. Remember MSI's GODLIKE tease, which was expected to be a X299 motherboard due to the number of PCIe slots on offer, but ended up being a Z270-based one? Well, we remember, hence why we start with this disclaimer to pour some cold water on expectations. However, there is one model that can be said to be a X299 offering pretty confidently: MSI's tease of a new Gaming Pro motherboard, which shows the four RAM slots as close to the I/O bracket: a design usually reserved for quad-channel supporting platforms. Port design in the PCIe and M.2 fronts seems similar to the GODLIKE Z270, but it would seem that MSI has designed another kind of an M.2 Shield interface, which now encircles a PCIe port while cooling two simultaneous M.2 SSDs.

The next motherboard, which we can't confirm is really a X299 based-one, is teased by ASUS, under its Republic of gamers branding, which shows the integration a an LCD screen in the motherboard footprint. The LCD seems basic enough, and could be useful so as to visually check operating frequencies and temperatures, though ASUS naturally had to add their ROG bling to it. Seems like simple LED support was too 2016 for them.

SiSoft Sandra is one of the best (and more common) sources for details on upcoming, as-of-yet-unreleased hardware details and characteristics. Now, details on one of Intel's upcoming Skylake-X parts have surfaced, which gives us some details on what are likely final specifications, considering how close we are to X299's accelerated release.

The processor in the spotlight is one of Intel's 10-core processors, the Core i9 7900X (which is erroneously reported by the software as the Core i7 7900X), Intel's 10-core CPU. While initial reports pegged this CPU at as running at clock speeds of 3.30 GHz base and with 4.30 GHz Turbo Boost, it would seem Intel's release silicon will leverage much higher stock speeds, with the reported values on this SiSoft report being a staggering 4.0 GHz base, and 4.5 GHz Turbo Boost. These are extremely high clock speeds for a ten-core part, but all the other details about the Core i9 7900X check out: there are 14,080 KB (13.75 MB) of shared L3 cache, 1 MB L2 cache per core (for a total of 10 MB), as well as a 175 W TDP. This difference in clock speeds (especially when you compare it to Ryzen's much lower clock speeds) are probably an indicator of not only architectural differences between both designs, but a statement on Intel's fabrication process capabilities. And as an added bonus, check the motherboard that was used: a juicy, as-of-yet-unknown, X299 Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 7. Two details of this magnitude in a single screenshot? It's clearly a case of having your cake and eating it too.

MSI posted its third teaser pic for one of its upcoming socket LGA2066 motherboards, which is likely the X299 Gaming Pro. Designed for Core i7 "Kaby Lake-X" and Core i9 "Skylake-X" processors, the board appears to feature eight DDR4 DIMM slots (four slots on the left side of the socket). The teaser also gives us a glance of the LGA2066 socket, which could feature a similar retention mechanism to the current LGA2011v3 socket, even if the cooler support isn't consistent, given that some cooler manufacturers such as Noctua are already giving away LGA2066 brackets. The teaser pic also reveals two CPU power inputs, an 8-pin EPS and 4-pin ATX. This is unusual for a "mid-range" brand extension such as Gaming Pro, unless some of the Core i9 "Skylake-X" chips really do have >140W TDPs that demand more power inputs than your run of the mill single 8-pin EPS.

It seems that Intel's accelerated released schedule for its upcoming HEDT platform is starting to slowly bear fruits, with many details leaking through the cracks almost non-stop during the last few days (and before you ask, yes, I did have more links to show you.)

These should be two of the top performing processors in Intel's line-up, and the i9 7900X (10-core) and 7920X (12-core) have been tested on integer and floating point calculations. The 10-core i9-7900X (3.1 GHz base frequency, no Turbo listed)) scores 107 points in single-core benchmarks, and 1467 points in the multi-core test. The 12-core, 2.9 GHz base frequency 7920X, however, scores a head-scratchingly-higher 130 points in the same single-threaded benchmark, despite carrying the same architecture at... hmm... lower clocks. Maybe this processor's Turbo is working as expected, up to 3.25 GHz (average), and that's the factor for the higher single-core performance?

AMD Ryzen 9 "Threadripper" series 12-core, 14-core, and 16-core client desktop processors, which will form the company's next-generation high-end desktop (HEDT) lineup, which goes against Intel Core i9 "Skylake-X" series, could come in a brand new socket. This shouldn't come as a surprise because the chips have higher electrical requirements, besides double the I/O of socket AM4 Ryzen processors, such as a 44-lane PCIe gen 3.0 root complex, quad-channel DDR4 memory interface, and more. This socket, according to a "HotHardware" report, is an LGA (land-grid array) with 4,094 pins.

The new LGA-4094 socket, so-called SP3r2, will be slightly scaled up from the SP3 socket AMD has been selling enterprise Opteron-brand multi-socket CPUs on (pictured below). The consumer version of this socket could feature a more user-friendly retention mechanism that shouldn't require a screwdriver to fasten. Motherboards based on this distinctively rectangular socket will feature up to eight DDR4 DIMM slots to hold quad-channel DDR4 memory, and over four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, with support for 3-way and 4-way multi-GPU solutions. The motherboards will also feature copious amounts of onboard devices, M.2 slots, and other storage connectivity. Since "Threadripper" is rumored to be a multi-chip module of two 14 nm "Summit Ridge" dies linked together on-package with with an Infinity Fabric interconnect, only one of the two dies links to the motherboard chipset (AMD X399 chipset), while all the PCIe lanes of the second die (including those which would make up the chipset bus) are freed up.

Today is an eventful day in the tech world, with two high-impact leaks already offering themselves up to our scrutiny. We had previously covered AMD's upcoming HEDT platform, based on the company's new X399 chipset, as having a quite distinctive lineup of processors, with not only 16 and 12-core offerings hot on foundries presses', but also some 14-core, 28-thread chips as well. Now, a leak has apparently revealed the entire Ryzen HEDT platform, whose processor marketing name, Ryzen 9, sounds really close to Intel's Core i9.

AMD's offerings look to offer an edge at least on core-count, with the Red team's top offerings, the Ryzen 9 1998X and Ryzen 9 1998, bringing in a game-changer 16 cores and 32 threads to the table. Perhaps even more importantly, we have to mention that the 1998X (these names, if true, are quite a mouthful, though) achieves a 3.5 GHz base, 3.9 GHz boost clock, which owes nothing to AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X consumer flagship CPUs. Rumors of AMD's frequency demise on higher core-count Ryzen CPUs have been greatly exaggerated, it would seem. And did I mention that these chips are coming with a TDP of 155 W - 5 W lower than Intel's purported 12-core, i9-7920X offering? Consider that for a moment.

The folks at MSI seem to be particularly fond of puzzles at this point in time, for no discernible reason. I say so because they've been giving us snippets of an upcoming high-end motherboard, which we have previously covered. At the time, we posited it would fall somewhere along the X299-end of the spectrum, considering the huge amount of PCIe x16 ports on-board.

It would seem those suspicions were founded, since MSI's other GODLIKE branded motherboards (which means they have all the bells & whistles available on time of their release) were X99-based, so it would follow that the new GODLIKE would usher in their footsteps as well. From the new piece of the puzzle, we can glean that this motherboard will offer, in addition to its 4x PCIe x16 ports and 3x M.2 slots over the X299's 44 PCIe lanes, 3x Ethernet connectors, 6x USB 3.1, and 2x Wi-Fi antennas. Expect this motherboard to be one of the most feature-packed offerings for Intel's expected ninth coming (of their Core i9-branded HEDT processors, that is.)

Intel is reportedly giving final touches to a new line of high-end desktop processors under the Core i9 brand extension. Until now, the company used the Core i7 brand extension broadly, to cover both the top-end parts of the mainstream-desktop (LGA115x) segment, and the high-end desktop (HEDT) segment, consisting of the LGA1366 and LGA2011-series sockets. With the advent of the new LGA2066 socket, Intel will be launching two distinct kinds of products - the Core i7 "Kaby Lake-X" quad-core series; and the Core i9 "Skylake-X" 6-core, 8-core, 10-core, and 12-core processors.

The Core i7 "Kaby Lake-X" will include the much talked about Core i7-7740K and i7-7640K quad-core processors (there's no Core i5 Kaby Lake-X). These chips will feature up to 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per core, which is four times that of the existing i7-7700K chip. The i7-7740K features 8 MB of shared L2 cache; while the i7-7640K features just 6 MB. Interestingly, the i7-7640K also happens to lack HyperThreading, while the i7-7740K features it. The i7-7740K will ship with higher clock speeds than the i7-7700K, with 4.30 GHz core, and 4.50 GHz Turbo Boost. The i7-7640K features 4.00 GHz core, with 4.20 GHz Turbo Boost. The Core i9 series is a whole different beast.

Intel's posterboy processor for the 32 nm Westmere architecture, the six-core Gulftown is now living, breathing silicon. The company seems to have already dispatched samples of the chip. Gulftown is based on the LGA-1366 socket. Featuring 6 cores and 12 threads with HyperThreading enabled, it holds 12 MB of L3 cache to support the additional data load over the QuickPath Interconnect.

A noted enthusiast has two Gulftown processors running in a dual-socket setup. This 12 core, 24 thread monstrosity uses 24 GB of DDR3 memory using 4 GB modules (perhaps 2 x 3 modules). The processors are running at 2.40 GHz (18 x 133 MHz). The machine was put through WPrime multi-threaded benchmark. It crunched WPrime 32M in a little over 6 seconds, and 1024M in 145.6 seconds. Going by older information, Gulftown should be implemented in a commercial product in Q1 2010, when Intel plans a host of other important product launches. When released as Core i9, the processor will target the premium enthusiast market.

Last week, Intel sketched out its strategy in dealing with its client processor brand Core, and placing its different kinds of processors in series of markers (such as "i3", "i5", and "i7"), on the merit of performance and features they offer, and not necessarily a segregation based on core type and socket type. This raised a big debate in our forums, on who is really going to benefit from this kind of branding.

Chinese website INPAI.com.cn sourced information which explains what factors go into determining which brand marker a processor gets. The table elaborates on how different kinds of Intel processors (determined by core and socket types) cross different lines, with a few features toggled or enhanced. It is sure to throw up some surprises.