On Monday, Intel’s top desktop processors include those using the Broadwell-E architecture, such as the Core i7-6950X Extreme Edition. That will be changing with the release of Skylake-X and other products and there is now at least a rumor of when exactly that might occur, The Tech Report reported.
Specifically, Bench Life uncovered some leaked information that appears to show off a range of possible released dates for Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X, the latter of which would represent seventh-generation high-performance desktop CPUs. According to the leak, Skylake-X will arrive at the end of June or beginning of July, a bit earlier than the August release that was previously expected. Kaby Lake-X would arrive during roughly the same timeframe.
In addition, Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X will both support the LGA 20166 socket and the X299 chipset, which also has not been officially announced. Skylake-X should offer between six and 10 cores at 140 watts, with support for quad-channel DDR4 and up to 44 lanes of PCI Express 3.0. While Kaby Lake-X will likely be pulled from the mainstream line, with quad-core CPUs up to 112 watts supporting dual-channel RAM and 16 lanes of PCIe.
Other specifications include up to 10 ports of USB 3.0 and eight SATA Gen3. The new X-series chipset will also support DMI 3.0 x4.
As usual, this information amounts to little more than rumors at this point, although the specifications do seem more official than the timelines. In any event, anyone looking to build a new high-performance desktop PC will have something to think about beyond AMD’s latest Ryzen chips, at least if they’re not in too much of a hurry to get building.
