While AMD Ryzen chips will reportedly hit the market between February and March 2017, Intel is set to stop its close rival on its track with the launch of high-end Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors in the form of four Core i7-7000 chips. Confirmed release date of the powerful CPUs is said to be August this year all four will be powered by the flagship HEDT X299 platform.
Picking up on the report by Chinese-language blog Benchlife, WCCFTech said that four i7-7000 processing chips will debut in time for the Gamescom 2017 and will become commercially available no later than August this year. The push will come months after the AMD push of its Summit Ridge processors that according to rumors will be bannered by the flagship SR7 chip.
The four SKUs will be delivered in 10-core, 89-core and 6-core models and will run on the Skylake platform while a 4-core variant will also be issued on the Kaby Lake architecture, the report added. All chips will make use of the 14-nanometer process but it is expected that the Kaby Lake Core i7-7000 will enjoy a slight advantage in terms of computing might and power efficiency thanks to better optimization.
WCCFTech also reported that all premium chips are designed for the X299 computing platform that largely hints of processing chip capabilities to meet the demands of enthusiasts such high-resolution gaming, virtual reality functionalities and overclocking. The latter is a feature that is native with the upcoming Ryzen chips, which AMD confirmed will come out of the box unlocked.
Likewise, it is understood that Intel intends to release first the K Edition of the chip series with the X or Extreme Edition to follow later in the year. The move appears to be influenced by reports that AMD will retail the top-end Ryzen SR7 for no more than $500 a pop, which Intel will likely counter by selling the 10-core i7-7000 at a reasonable price point.
No specific price tag was mentioned but the same report noted "that the cost of the ten core model may be slightly lower than the Core i7-6950X." And seemingly in order to lure in chip enthusiasts "Intel has slightly modified their cache system to become more balanced and improve performance," the report added.
Ahead of a supposedly confirmed August 2017 release date, WCCFTech said X299-supported products - and that includes Core i7-7000 chips - will likely be previewed via the Computex event that will happen June this year.