Intel unleashes i9 9980XE for a low price of $1979 — runs faster, priced cheaper!
Intel didn’t just stop at the mainstream platform. Fans of the Intel HEDT platform will also have stuff to upgrade to. The best part is that you don’t have to get a new motherboard, as the new 9th Generation Intel Core X-series processors all work on the Intel X299 platform.
The new processors for the Intel Core X-series start from the 8C/16T Intel Core i7 9800X, which is somewhat of a bridge between the Intel Core i9 9900K and the HEDT platform. At least this is way better than the half-baked i5 7640X and i7 7740X which made the bottom of the list back then.
The Skylake-X Refresh processors sees 10-core, 12-core, 14-core, 16-core, and of course, the Big Daddy of Skylake-X, the Intel Core i9 9980XE with 18 cores and 36 threads. Surprisingly it is $20 cheaper than the last generation 18C/36T i9 7980XE. All the new Skylake-X processors tout a 165W TDP, 44 PCIe lanes and quad-channel DDR4 RAM support.
Here’s a table to simplify all the specifications.
| Cores / Threads | Base / Boost clocks | Cache | TDP | Price | |
| i9 9980XE | 18C/36T | 3.0 / 4.5 GHz | 24.75MB | 165W | $1979 |
| i9 9960X | 16C/32T | 3.1 / 4.5 GHz | 22.00MB | 165W | $1684 |
| i9 9940X | 14C/28T | 3.3 / 4.5 GHz | 19.25MB | 165W | $1387 |
| i9 9920X | 12C/24T | 3.5 / 4.5 GHz | 19.25MB | 165W | $1189 |
| i9 9900X | 10C/20T | 3.5 / 4.5 GHz | 19.25MB | 165W | $989 |
| i9 9820X | 10C/20T | 3.3 / 4.2 GHz | 16.50MB | 165W | $889 |
| i7 9800X | 8C/16T | 3.8 / 4.5 GHz | 16.50MB | 165W | $589 |
All the new processors will also feature soldered TIM to maximize thermal transfer from the CPU dies to the IHS. If 18 cores aren’t enough, you can wait until the end of 2018, which is when the Intel Xeon W-3175X 28C/56T CPU will launch. It won’t work with your Intel X299 motherboard though.
Pokdepinion: Well it seems like Intel isn’t ready to move beyond 18C/36T in the HEDT platform for now. For those who run heavily multi-threaded applications, perhaps AMD Threadripper 2 is still a better choice?
