The Intel Cascade Lake-X are half the price per core
Intel has presented the Cascade Lake-X lineup earlier than planned. The first thing that catches the eye is that Intel has reduced the price by up to 50 per cent in anticipation of AMD's next-gen Threadripper chips.
The new Cascade Lake X processors clock higher than their predecessors, have the new Turbo Boost 3.0, support more and faster RAM and offer more PCIe lanes. The processors should be available from November 2019.
| Model | Cores / Threads | Base / boost clock | L3 cache | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-10980XE | 18 / 36 | 3.0 / 4.8 GHz | 24.75 MB | 165 W |
| Core i9-10940X | 14 / 28 | 3.3 / 4.8 GHz | 19.25 MB | 165 W |
| Core i9-10920X | 12 / 24 | 3.5 / 4.8 GHz | 16.5 MB | 165 W |
| Core i9-10900X | 10 / 20 | 3.7 / 4.7 GHz | 13.75 MB | 165 W |
What catches the eye with the processors is the price. The ninth-generation chips cost an average of $103 per core. For the tenth generation, the average is $57. In the high-end desktop sector, AMD is giving Intel a headache with its thread rippers. The upcoming Ryzen 3950X will only exacerbate Intel's situation. It is also compatible with cheaper mainstream motherboards. The next generation of thread rippers is also in the starting blocks. Intel therefore has to react and is therefore lowering the per-core price above average.
What else do these things offer?
The Cascade Lake X processors are still based on the Skylake microarchitecture and are manufactured using the 14nm production process. Due to the higher clock frequency, the TDP also increases to 165 watts. With Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, the four fastest cores should be available for applications that only require one core. The boost clock of the two fastest cores and the boost clock of the next two fastest cores are to be achieved minus 100 MHz. Intel is still ahead of AMD in terms of per-core performance. Thanks to this technology, it should stay that way.
In terms of RAM, the tenth generation processors now support DDR4-2933 and the maximum possible memory is 256 GB. There are also four PCIe 3.0 lanes, resulting in a total of 72 lanes. This enables motherboard manufacturers to add support for Wifi 6 and 2.5G Ethernet. <p
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