It’s not often that we geek out over individual computer components. Okay, maybe a little, at home, when no-one is looking. But the Core i9 X Series, a new slice of silicon from Intel that was announced at this year’s Computex, is worth a public squeal of delight (or two).
That’s because the Core i9 X Series is going to put the Core i7 range to shame, especially if flagship flagchip the i9-7980XE has anything to say about it. The XE stands for ‘Extreme Edition’ obviously, but it’s the massive 18-core loadout that is going to make PC enthusiasts hard to please in future. It has over a teraflop of power at its disposal — the first Intel consumer chip to do so — in case you want to break into a cyberpunk mainframe, plan a mission to Mars, or play everything on your computer in 4K with the settings on Extreme.
Pricing for the i9-7980XE reflects that, too. It’ll retail for R2,000, or about R26,300, for the Core i9 headliner but there are set to be more affordable options from Intel. Even if ‘affordable’ is a relative term and you’re going to be losing some of those cores in the process. There are 16, 14, 12, and 10-core variants, with the entry point being the 3.3GHz (up to 4.3-4.5GHz) penta-core i9-7900X CPU, which will set enthusiasts back $1,000 (R13,100). Which is, you know, a little cheaper. Still got 10 cores, though.
Of course, running up to 18 cores is going to lead to some significant heating issues. Intel have sorted out their own liquid cooling designs for the new chips, a system which will work with some older processors as well as some of their newly announced 6 and 8 core Core i7 lineup for 2017. We don’t think plain old thermal paste is going to lead to anything less than a molten motherboard on this lot.
Right now we only have two real questions: When can we have one and is anyone out there willing to lend us about R40k for an upgrade?
Source: via Engadget
