Intel announces Cascade Lake-X, specs and pricing now available

Intel has lifted the embargo on their new high-end desktop CPUs early due to a press leak breaking the NDA. Cascade lake-X will offer HEDT users a considerable upgrade over previous generations and will come in at a lower price point.

Like the previous generation of Intel’s HEDT processors, Cascade Lake-X will be a further revision to the Skylake Xeon architecture. Cascade Lake-X will offer increased clock frequency and security fixes over previous generations. Higher clock speeds and memory capacity coupled with better side-channel attack protection will be the new HEDT CPU’s main features. Although pricing will be what’s most inviting for customers.

Intel will be launching the new Cascade Lake-X 10980XE – 18 core, 36 thread – flagship CPU for under $1000, which is considerably lower than current the current 9980XE. It seem this is due to AMD's competition in the HEDT sector, as the company is due to release its next-generation HEDT Threadripper CPUs next month.

Along with Threadripper 3000, AMD will be launching its Ryzen 9 3950X CPU which is a 16 core, 32 thread monster, offering PCIe 4.0 and support for up to 128GB of RAM. Intel needs something on the market to compete with this so their upcoming Core i9-10980XE looks the perfect candidate, which will offer more PCIe lanes and higher capacity memory support at a slightly higher price, so customers may be tempted with this over the Ryzen 9 3950X.

All Cascade Lake-X CPUs will support up to 256GB quad-channel memory with PCIe 3.0 lanes up from 44 in previous generations, to 48 this time around. Official memory speeds for Cascade lake-X is listed as 2933 MHz for one DIMM per channel and 2666 MHz for two DIMMS per channel. All the new CPUs will utilise the X299 motherboard platform and have a rated 165W TDP.

The flagship Core i9-10980XE will boast 18 cores with 36 threads, a base frequency of 3.0 GHz and an all-core boost of 3.8 GHz, with individual cores being able to turbo boost up to a maximum of 4.8 GHz with Turbo Boost 3 technology. The Core i9-10980XE will set you back $979 upon release.

In contrast, the Cascade Lake-X Core i9-10900X, which is the entry-level CPU in the series, will have 10 cores and 20 threads, base frequency will be set at 3.7 GHz with an all-core boost of 4.3 GHz. Turbo Boost 3 speeds will allow individual cores to reach 4.7 GHz. Intel has set the launch price for the Core i9-10900X at $590.

The new line up of Cascade Lake-X CPUs will offer a total of four SKUs with the entry-level Core i9-10900X 10 core 20 thread being the cheapest, with a Core i9-10920X 12 core, 24 thread just above. The two top CPUs will be a Core i9-10940X 14 core, 28 thread with the flagship Core i9-10980XE we mentioned earlier completing the line-up.

KitGuru says: With this news coming suddenly, it has certainly made the next couple of months very exciting in the CPU market. Will these new Intel HEDT CPUs tempt you away from plans to buy the new Ryzen 9 3950X?

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