Intel has lost its dominating grasp on the market to AMD when it comes to processors, especially the high-end desktop (HEDT) lineup. AMD’s Threadripper series has become a real threat to Intel which is why the latter is trying to do everything it can to take the cake. The company announced Cascade Lake-X lineup of processors and has cut pricing of its chips by up to 50%. With this, Intel wants to compete with the upcoming Ryzen 9 3950X processor expected to be released at $750.
The Cascade Lake-X chips bring more PCIe lanes, have higher clock speeds and Intel has implemented Turbo Boost 3.0. This means the Turbo Boost will target up to four cores now, as opposed to two cores in the previous generation. They also support more RAM capacity. Due to all these improvements, the TDP has also increased to 165W.
The new chips will debut along with the new X-series motherboards as well that will allow you to take advantage of the 48 PCIe lanes in the Cascade Lake-X chips. While AMD has gone on to PCIe 4.0, the new Intel chips will stick to PCIe 3.0.
| Cores/Threads | Base / Boost (GHz) | L3 Cache (MB) | PCIe 3.0 | DRAM | TDP | MSRP/RCP | Price Per Core | |
| TR 2990WX | 32 / 64 | 3.0 / 4.2 | 64 | 64 (4 to PCH) | Quad DDR4-2933 | 250W | $1799 | $56 |
| TR 2970WX | 24 / 48 | 3.0 / 4.2 | 64 | 64 (4 to PCH) | Quad DDR4-2933 | 250W | $1299 | $54 |
| Core i9-10980XE | 18 / 36 | 3.0 / 4.8 | 24.75 | 48 | Quad DDR4-2933 | 165W | $979 | $54.39 |
| Core i9-9980XE | 18 / 36 | 3.0 / 4.5 | 24.75 | 44 | Quad DDR4-2666 | 165W | $1979 | $110 |
| Core i9-10940X | 14 / 28 | 3.3 / 4.8 | 19.25 | 48 | Quad DDR4-2933 | 165W | $784 | $56 |
| Core i9-9940X | 14 / 28 | 3.3 / 4.5 | 19.25 | 44 | Quad DDR4-2666 | 165W | $1387 | $99 |
| TR 2920X | 12 / 24 | 3.5 / 4.3 | 32 | 64 (4 to PCH) | Quad DDR4-2933 | 180W | $649 | $54 |
| Core i9-10920X | 12 / 24 | 3.5 / 4.8 | 19.25 | 48 | Quad DDR4-2933 | 165W | $689 | $57.41 |
| Core i9-9920X | 12 / 24 | 3.5 / 4.5 | 19.25 | 44 | Quad DDR4-2666 | 165W | $1189 | $99 |
| Core i9-10900X | 10 / 20 | 3.7 / 4.7 | 19.25 | 48 | Quad DDR4-2933 | 165W | $590 | $59 |
| Core i9-9900X | 10 / 20 | 3.5 / 4.5 | 19.25 | 44 | Quad DDR4-2666 | 165W | $989 | $98.9 |
| Core i9-9820X | 10 / 20 | 3.3 / 4.2 | 16.5 | 44 | Quad DDR4-2666 | 165W | $889 | $88.9 |
This table from Tom’s Hardware showcases the range of Intel processors and their new prices, along with “Price Per Core”.
Intel has dropped the price for its Core i9-10980XE to $979 from the original $1,990. Not just that, the Core i9-10940X has come down to $784 and the Core i9-10920X has come down to $689. Even though these new Cascade Lake-X chips are based on the Skylake microarchitecture, Intel has over several years squeezed a lot of performance out of it. The company has made price cuts in the entry-level HEDT chips as well stating that this will allow customers to more easily switch to the latest and more capable platform. Also, right now, Intel doesn’t have a 16-core chip to go against the upcoming 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 3950X.
There are several other improvements in the new 10th-Gen Cascade Lake-X processor lineup that will be discussed in detail as we come closer to the November 2019 reveal of the chips from both Intel and AMD.
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