First Intel Haswell-E Engineering Sample CPU Spotted

News
By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

The rumor mill has booted!

Image Source: VR-Zone

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.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

See more CPUs News
33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hrhuffnpuff
    Well, shit, I was hoping 2nd quarter release, as I plan on a new build for my personal PC, quite soon.
    Reply
  • TEAMSWITCHER
    Just buy a Haswell 4-Core processor now and be done with it. Six SATA-3 ports are more than enough for storage and even doubling the Intel core count isn't as cost effective as using multiple GPU's. Seek out the software companies that are developing solutions using CUDA or OpenCL and support them. In the long run, you'll see much better performance than handing over big money to Intel for meager gains.
    Reply
  • Shneiky
    Say that to my MentalRay. The content creation industry is still very CPU dependent and only few assets are computed on a GPU. It will be years before we see an OpenCL rendered with the quality of a even free MR. Sorry, but my 3D needs rendering now, if I am to survive in the long run to get to those GPU renderers.
    Reply
  • wysir
    Since I'm planning on this being my next major system upgrade, I'm hoping this will have USB 3.1 and nexGen SATA support as well. I have enjoyed my AMD processors in the past, but I'm just getting tired of the 990 Chipset and the fact that they are still stuck on PCIe 2.0 and there is no word of support for DDR4, USB 3.1 or any other new techs.
    Reply
  • colson79
    If you need 3d rendering now then pick yourself up an 8 core Xeon.
    Reply
  • Quarkzquarkz
    So, whats the point of 8 cores when games can't even utilize the hex cores that's currently out?
    Reply
  • Shneiky
    Sure, you will give me the cash? Where I live those come for 2000-2500 euro and up depending on the MHz. Not to mention ECC is double the price of normal RAM. Maya already costs me 3000 for a license, and the same for Nuke. I will pick a 8 core 500/1000 euro CPU (with higher MHz) and Non-ECC RAM anyday then a 4000 combo.
    Reply
  • carowden
    12195896 said:
    So, whats the point of 8 cores when games can't even utilize the hex cores that's currently out?

    well, you never know what games might be using in a year or two. also, computers are used for things other than games
    Reply
  • cemerian
    well games can already utilize 8 cores the likes of bf3(could be up to six not sure), bf4 crysis 2 and crysis 3 and there are a lot to come(all games using cryengine or frostbite will be able to utilize up to 8 cores if not more), so your argument is pointless
    Reply
  • the_redmage
    cant agree more with Shneiky, as a digital artist who uses Max, more cores for rendering are always to our advantage and cost/core for these vs xeon as a work station are great! I would use Xeon just for render farm personally if I had the dough. I've been itching to pull the trigger on some Ivy Bridge-E love but have been holding out on any news of Haswell-E like today... sad so far away... ugh
    Reply