Unsurprisingly, Silicon Lottery is extending its chip binning business to AMD and Intel's upcoming flagships, the Ryzen 9 3950X and Core i9-9900KS, respectively. As a reminder, Silicon Lottery specializes in buying large quantities of CPUs and testing them to sort out the best from the worst in a process called binning. The company then sells the premium chips (with a precertified overclock) to customers with a markup.
AMD originally announced the Ryzen 9 3950X would arrive last month, but the company delayed the launch until November, which is the same month the Threadripper 3000 series will debut. Meanwhile, Intel hasn't given a firm launch date for the Core i9-9900KS, but told us that we should expect it by the end of this month. If you want a look at what to expect from that processor, check out our Exclusive: Testing Intel's Unreleased Core i9-9900KS article.
Silicon Lottery lists the Ryzen 9 3950X as available on November 30, but this is likely a placeholder given that AMD hasn't told us exactly when it will be available. Maybe AMD is launching it on the last day of November, but would Silicon Lottery publicly advertise that fact? Probably not. Considering the somewhat limited overclocking headroom we see with other Ryzen 3000 CPUs, it's an open question whether or not the 3950X will overclock better than its siblings; on the one hand, the CPU has the most cores of the entire lineup (which typically constrains overclockability), but on the other hand it surely has better silicon quality than other third-gen Ryzen parts. We'll have to wait and see.
The Core i9-9900KS does have a seemingly-firm release date of November 3, according to Silicon Lottery's listing. Now, Intel did promise the 9900KS this month, not in November, so this could also be a placeholder date. Though it is odd the listing is a few days into November rather than October 31 (perhaps it would be too spooky?). Whatever the reasoning behind the date, Silicon Lottery will also be binning it alongside the Ryzen 9 3950X, and we might see some pretty high clock speeds since the -9900KS from Silicon Lottery will essentially be binned twice, once by Intel and once again by Silicon Lottery.
For AMD and Intel enthusiasts alike, the last week of October and November will be an interesting time. We have our fingers crossed that the Ryzen 9 3950X might be a little more exciting for overclocking than the other Ryzen 3000 CPUs and that the Core i9-9900KS will push 14nm+++ higher than ever before.
