Intel will unveil its Basin Falls platform, Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs in tow, two months earlier than expected, according to rumors. The chipmaker is slated to hit the Computex 2017 computer expo in Taipei from late May to early June, where it'll purportedly talk about Basin Falls.
The company will also launch its Coffee Lake chips in August, much earlier than the previously reported January 2018 unveiling date. As to why Intel is suddenly making scheduling adjustments is still not clear, although AMD's increasing time in the spotlight could be a factor.
Over the past weeks, AMD's Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 CPUs have entered heavy chatter, in part because they are rattling Intel's own chips, offering higher core counts and better performance for less money. Intel accelerating the launch of its new products seems as its way of pivoting the spotlight back into its turf.
In the meantime, here's a refresher of all things Intel is expected to unveil in the coming months:
Skylake-X
Rumored to supposedly be available in six, eight, and 10-core architectures, Skylake-X is a CPU update Intel will launch as part of a high-end desktop, or HEDT, refresh cycle. Current 6xxx HEDT chips are built on Broadwell and support the X99 chipset, which debuted back in 2014. All Skylake-X chips will feature a rated TDP of 140 W, according to reports.
Kaby Lake-X
On the other hand, the Kaby Lake-X series will reportedly have a 112 W quad-core processor, and rumors suggest that it'll come with integrated graphics able to run on the X299 platform, marking it the first time for Intel to ever release a quad-core chip with graphics. How Kaby Lake-X would distance itself from the X270 variant is yet to be determined.
Basin Falls
Basin Falls is purportedly the codename for Intel's new X299 chipset, and the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X chips based on it. BenchLife previously leaked the Basin Falls platform, showing that at least 4 SKUs is headed for the X299 platform. All processors will use the 14-nanometer process node, with the Kaby Lake-X chips potentially having a slight leg up because of the process optimizations.
All chips will be marketed as Core i7-7000 series processors using the LGA 2066 socket, which is called Socket R4 under the Basin Falls platform. Skylake-X will purportedly have up to 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes, while Kaby Lake-X will have 16.
Coffee Lake
Coffee Lake, while highly anticipated, is expected to deliver only slight performance gains, similar to the improvements Kaby Lake chips received after Skylake. Coffee Lake chips are also rumored to feature more cores, which gives Intel a six-core ordinary desktop part for the first time. The chips will be marketed as Core i7-8000 processors.
Rumors say that Intel will initially release several K-core i3, i5, and i7 processors and its Z370 in August, as mentioned previously. It will also release more CPUs in addition to H370, B360, and H310 processors possibly at the end of 2017 or early 2018.
The company reportedly has spent more than $100 million to accelerate the pace of manufacturing its chips.
Thoughts about the Skylake-X, Kaby Lake-X, and Coffee Lake rumors? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
