First Intel Haswell-E Engineering Sample CPU Spotted
The rumor mill has booted!
While the mainstream Haswell processors from Intel have been on the market for a while already, the HEDT (High-End DeskTop) Haswell-E processors still have to make their debut. While this is not a launch, the folks over at VR-Zone did manage to get a peek at an engineering sample of one of the chips.
For starters, it looks like the chip will feature a total of eight processing cores, each clocked at 3.0 GHz. They will also sit in the upcoming X99 Express chipset from Intel, which should offer native support for USB 3.0 along with a default total of ten SATA3 (6 Gb/s) ports. Additionally, the report indicates that it will support DDR4 memory, and that the CPU will be able to drive 40 individual PCIe 3.0 lanes. There was no word on SATA-Express support.
According to the report, the Haswell-E chips are expected to make their debut around Q3 2014, so sorry, we've still got a long wait ahead.

well, you never know what games might be using in a year or two. also, computers are used for things other than games
Adding to what you said.
According to DICE, BF4 can use between 90% and 95% of 8 cores. I assume it would still benefit up to 16 cores, just not as much. It's also possible that different parts of the game engine scales with CPU cores, so you might be able to increase certain qualities in game with negligible performance hit assuming you have enough cores to crunch it.
That is going to be a "power house" of a CPU! It's not for gaming; (incl hyperthreading) 16 threads!! But even that is an understatement, as it will be using Intel latest architecture and likely no integrated graphics! Careful of core count, as AMD "marketing" has made it meaningless garbage. But this CPU appears to be the real deal.
Although, I'll gue$$ the retail price will be no "deal". Power users and enthusiasts...
Interesting to see if there is a GPU core in these? Any information about it?
The most important thing seems to be the new chip set. X99 seems to have some reall oomph to back up CPU and GPU and a guite big SSD farm!
4770k for $270, MSI Z87-GD65 for $125, 16GB G-Skill 2400 for $120. Upgrade cost me $140 after selling my 2600k, mobo, ram that I had been rocking for almost two years. Can't complain.
Adding to what you said.
According to DICE, BF4 can use between 90% and 95% of 8 cores. I assume it would still benefit up to 16 cores, just not as much. It's also possible that different parts of the game engine scales with CPU cores, so you might be able to increase certain qualities in game with negligible performance hit assuming you have enough cores to crunch it.
I have an i7-3770k and while in game, I rarely see BF4 cpu utilization above 50%. Typically it hovers around 40%.
However, during map loading, CPU usage can hit 90-95% for a bit. This suggests BF4 can only use more than 4 cores in special circumstances.
It doesn't seem likely that additional cores will enhance the gameplay experience.