A report has been posted on VR-Zone.com, a Chinese website, with the release date information of a handful of Intel processors. Included in the list are the upcoming Haswell-E processors, including the new X99 platform.
The report mentions that the new 4th generation Intel Core i3-4370, Core i3-4360T, Core i3-4160, and Core i3-4160T, as well as the Pentium G3460, Pentium G3450T, Pentium G3250, and Pentium G3250T, which are all Haswell Refresh SKUs, will come to shelves on July 20, 2014. These CPUs will drop into the LGA1150 socket, and will work on both 8-Series motherboards as well as 9-Series motherboards (only the H97 and Z97 are out).
Next up we have the Haswell-E parts, beginning with the Core i7-5820K. This chip is the starting point for the X99 platform, and is rumored to carry a sub $400 price tag. This chip is said to carry six processing cores and work with 15 MB of cache. The chip's base frequency is set at 3.3 GHz, with a minimum speed of 1.2 GHz. This will result in a chip that performs well at an acceptable price tag.
Then there is the Core i7-5930K, which is said to carry six cores and a price tag of approximately $600. It features the same 15 MB of cache along with a base clock of 3.5 GHz. In terms of performance, it shouldn't be too far off from the cheaper Core i7-5820K, although it does cost $200 more. This is likely because of the PCI-Express configuration of the chip. The cheaper i7-5820K has only 28 PCI-Express lanes. This will allow you to install up to three graphics cards with eight lanes dedicated to each card, with four lanes left over for added devices. The $600 Core i7-5930K will have 40 PCI-Express lanes, making room for up to four graphics cards with eight lanes each, with another eight lanes to spare.
Finally, there is the most extreme Core i7-5960X, the top-tier chip in the lineup, with eight processing cores, and 20 MB of cache. The cores will all clock in at a base frequency of 3.0 GHz, probably to remain within the 140 W TDP, which all the CPUs carry. It will have the same PCI-Express configuration as the i7-5930K (40 lanes). No word on pricing yet, although given the history of Intel's most extreme CPUs, we can expect it to hover around the $1000 mark.
These specifications for the Haswell-E chips are older rumors, so do still take them with a grain of salt. It should give you a good idea of what to expect, though. The new report shows that they will be coming out in September, and we'll obviously see the release of the X99 platform.
Whether the report is true remains unknown, though VR-Zone is known to get these things right from time to time, so we're quite tempted to believe it. We also saw a number of X99 motherboards (though, of course, the vendors won't tell us that it's X99) at Computex, so the timing does seem right.
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