Intel is preparing to release new top of the line CPU: Core i9

There are so many rumors around the web regarding upcoming Intel Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X CPUs for months now. Now if the latest rumor is going to correct then it mean the introduction of new top of the line in Intel's CPU pipeline - Core i9. So far, over the course of the years, Intel has offered its Core family in i3, i5 or i7 flavors. Last Friday the specifications of the new Core i7 and Core i9 range leaked onto the web. As stated it isn’t much, but it does confirm the existence of Core i9. The Skylake-X CPUs are said to be the first ever 'Core i9 processors' and there are SKUs with six, eight, 10 and 12 cores - plus Hyperthreading of course. Each of the new processors is a 140-watt chip.

Photo Credit: Anandtech

Code-named Basin Falls, the new quad-core Kaby Lake-X CPUs would get the Core i7 branding. The i9 chips are said to feature a third clock state called Turbo Clock 3.0, which would allow for even higher clocks in single threaded tasks. The entire Core i9 "Skylake-X" series features quad-channel DDR4 memory interface. Socket LGA2066 motherboards will feature quad-channel wiring, with up to 8 DIMM slots, but when a Kaby Lake-X chip is installed, two memory channels are inactive.

Intel is expected to launch most of the Core i7 "Kaby Lake-X" and Core i9 "Skylake-X" lineup in June 2017, with the top-end i9-7920X following on in August, 2017.