Intel Discontinues Kaby Lake-X Processors

After barely a year on the market, Intel’s Kaby Lake-X processors are being discontinued.

Released with the X299 platform in mid 2017, Kaby Lake-X consisted of two four-core processors, the Core i5-7640X and the Core i7-7740X, that were the lowest-end parts compatible with the platform. Intel’s justification for producing Kaby Lake-X was that it served as an entry point to the company’s HEDT platform.

Because X299’s feature set depends so much on processor pairing, the reality was that Kaby Lake-X didn’t really unlock any benefits of the expensive motherboards it required. For example, when paired with a Kaby Lake-X processor, X299’s full potential of quad channel memory and 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes is cut to only two channels and 16 lanes.

It’s probably to no one’s surprise, then, that the market apparently didn’t agree with Intel that low performance mixed with high costs makes for great products. Kaby Lake-X was the subject of much ridicule from the start and was generally not well received by the enthusiast community due to its dubious market proposition. To that end, Intel has discontinued the parts in an official product change notification. The note shows that all retail versions of Core i5-7640X and the Core i7-7740X will be leaving the market within this year.

We don’t expect anyone will be missing Kaby Lake-X. X299 being so processor-dependent was a sore issue for enthusiasts from the beginning, but Kaby Lake-X only highlighted this fact. What’s more, AMD’s X370 platform, which launched only months before X299, already gave users ready and easy access to a high number of PCIe lanes and cheap processor options.

Ultimately, Kaby Lake-X just seemed like it was entirely out of touch with market demands. As we reported earlier this month, however, the X299 platform as a whole might be undergoing some changes soon. A successor chipset, the X399, was leaked in an Intel document.

  • justin.m.beauvais
    Not only was Kaby Lake X a poor value, Intel went off and obsoleted them hard with the Coffee Lake CPUs. Why would ANYONE buy a 4c/8t CPU on an EXPENSIVE platform, when you could buy a 6c/8t chip on a more mainstream platform that has better IPC and can pretty much match the more expensive chip in clock speeds? Kaby Lake X barely made sense when it launched and now makes absolutely no sense what so ever. It will not be missed.
    Reply
  • gunndykol
    Honestly it still makes as much sense now as it did at launch....zero. Even before Coffee Lake, the idea of anyone buying Kaby-Lake X as a way to get into the Enthusiast platform in order to then buy a true Enthusiast CPU later was silly. Wait another month or two to save the extra $50 to buy a Skylake-X chip instead of throwing $200 - $300 away on a "temporary" solution. If the price difference between Kaby Lake X chips and low end Skylake X chips were bigger....that may have been viable for some....but when the msrps are so close....it's a sucker buy.
    Reply
  • Martell1977
    I always thought it seemed backwards to have Skylake-X be the high end and Kaby the low. You would think that Kaby would be the high end as it was "newer" and supposedly had improvements.

    Kind of revealed how little to no difference there was between the generations.
    Reply
  • barryv88
    One of Intel's terribly bad platforms in terms of just about everything!
    - You'd think that high end CPU's get soldered at least. Oh wait, that's a no, we'll continue with the cheap colgate TIM instead. 2nd in class in terms of quality, which is a shame. Looks like its too much to ask to reach into their bottomless pit of cash and at least build some quality products. Pitiful....
    - 10core and higher chips are mini nuclear power plants. Just throw a quick Prime95 test and watch em melt and throttle at 90-100C.
    - You get what 44 PCI lanes in comparison to TR's 64? You pay more for their platforms, but you get less. That's a no, followed by another no.
    - You pay another $100 for raid keys? Are you KIDDING me??? While AMD offers theirs for free!
    - Lowest i5 and 7740X make no sense to even exist on a HEDT platform. O M G...
    - Requires top of the line water cooling, escalating unnecessary costs just to deal with the hideous thermals.
    The list goes on and on and on. And I'm starting to get a headache... There's good reason why Amazon is listing the TR1950X outselling any of Intel's HEDT parts. It just makes far more sense.
    Reply
  • tamalero
    20932595 said:
    Not only was Kaby Lake X a poor value, Intel went off and obsoleted them hard with the Coffee Lake CPUs. Why would ANYONE buy a 4c/8t CPU on an EXPENSIVE platform, when you could buy a 6c/8t chip on a more mainstream platform that has better IPC and can pretty much match the more expensive chip in clock speeds? Kaby Lake X barely made sense when it launched and now makes absolutely no sense what so ever. It will not be missed.

    Obviously they wanted to milk individuals as much they could by selling obsolete components at premium price for barely some stuff added.
    Reply
  • Kirk1975
    I’m still on x99 with my 6850k, with 40 pcie lanes on the cheap versus entry level 40+ lanes on x299. Intel messed up big in my opinion on x299. Until they have more cores and more pcie lanes for less coin, I’m sticking with x99.... or possibly going team red at some point.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Yup, good riddance to a product that never really made sense and shouldn't have existed in the first place. I wonder how many thousands of these were actually sold. Intel may have made a net loss on them.
    Reply
  • ledhead11
    Still rocking Z68 and X79 in my rigs along with them holding within 5-10fps of even the best game benches in 1440p/4k. Unless Intel can give a credible value vs. performance again I'm probably building AMD when I do need to make a new rig.
    Reply