It looks like Intel is soon going to make their upcoming flagship Core i9-7980XE available. According to the latest rumors, the Core i9-7980XE features 18 cores and 36 threads, and it might be combined with 24.75 MB of L3 cache. The base clock is set to 2.60GHz which is a pretty significant step down from the Core i9-7900X's 3.3GHz. According to OverclockersUK, the upcoming chip is available for pre-order now and it should hit the streets in September or October time frame.



The addition of the Core i9-7980XE doesn’t come as a surprise, it was pretty predictable that Intel was planning this flagship CPU in response to AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper. The Core i9-7980XE is going to ship with a price tag of $1'799 US, which is as monstrous as the chip’s specs. Compared that to the $999 US AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is setting you back, while still featuring 16 cores and 32 threads, the price of the Intel chip is very hard to justify.

Apparently, we don’t yet know how this monstrous chip is going to perform, but we can’t imagine that the Intel Core i9-7980XE with a base clock of 2.60GHz and a Turbo Boost of 4.40GHz is going to be twice as fast as a Ryzen Thradripper 1950X - which would do the price tag justice.

On another note the Core i9-7980XE is rated at 165W TDP. This is yet another 25W more than what the Core i9-7900X is burning, which results in even more punishment on the motherboard’s VRM. We’re curious to find out how the current boards are going to cope with the ever increasing loads on the VRM’s. Maybe more and more vendors will simply have to add active cooling to their high-end motherboards. Following you we’ve compile the specs of all the latest Core i7 and Core i9 HEDT chips from Intel.

Processor Name	Frequency (GHz)	Cache	C/T	Turbo Boost (GHz)		Socket	Unlocked
				2.0	3.0
i9-7980XE	2.60	24.75 MB	18/36	4.20	4.40	LGA 2066	Yes
i9-7960X	2.80	22.00 MB	16/32	4.20	4.40	LGA 2066	Yes
i9-7940X	3.10	19.25 MB	14/28	4.30	4.40	LGA 2066	Yes
i9-7920X	2.90	16.50 MB	12/24	4.30	4.40	LGA 2066	Yes
i9-7900X	3.30	13.75 MB	10/20	4.30	4.50	LGA 2066	Yes
i7-7820X	3.60	11.00 MB	8/16	4.30	4.50	LGA 2066	Yes
i7-7800X	3.50	8.25 MB	6/12	4.00	N/A	LGA 2066	Yes

Source: OC3D