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Intel Cascade Lake-X dramatically slashes prices on Intel's HEDT processors.
For those not familiar with the terminology, HEDT is high-end desktop, and is the desktop market segment with more cores, memory channels, and connectivity than the mainstream consumer desktop parts. The HEDT lineup today consists of Intel's Sky Lake-X and AMD's Threadripper, and both are heavily derivative of the respective companies' server parts.
Intel announced their lineup for Cascade Lake-X, which is coming in November. As it's essentially a refresh of Sky Lake-X, performance isn't changed much. The big headline change is a dramatic price drop.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14925/intel-cascade-lakex-for-hedt-18-cores-for-under-1000
The problem for Intel's lineup is that they charge about $2000 for the 18-core Core i9-9980XE part that is the top of the Sky Lake-X lineup. For comparison, AMD will sell you a 16-core Threadripper 2950X for under $800 or a 32-core Threadripper 2990WX for $1800. Intel can argue that the per-core premium price is justified because they have better, faster cores.
The problem is that that case is, if not vanishing entirely, then certainly becoming a whole lot weaker. The Ryzen 9 3950X is bringing 16 cores down to $750 in November, and with clock speeds and IPC competitive with Intel's Sky Lake-X lineup. Also importantly, third generation Ryzen doesn't suffer from the odd memory controller configuration of first and second generation Threadripper. You could make a case that the 18-core Core i9-10980XE will likely be a little faster than the Ryzen 9 3950X, both in single-threaded and highly-threaded workloads. But only a little faster, not a lot.
So if the $2000 price tag seems steep today, it will seem ridiculous then. As such, Intel slashed its price to about $1000. The rest of the Cascade Lake-X lineup also sees large price cuts as compared to the analogous Sky Lake-X parts, commonly around 40%.
As compared to currently available parts or even the coming Ryzen 9 3950X, there will be a decent case for Cascade Lake-X at the new prices. Cores and clock speeds aren't the only things that matter, and Cascade Lake-X notably has 4 channels of DDR4, as compared to two for third generation Ryzen. Cascade Lake-X will surely carry the drawback of burning a lot more power to be competitive on performance, however.
At least until third generation Threadripper shows up and blows it out of the water. Being a process node behind means not having great options available for where to place your lineup. The reason we've never seen this sort of price cuts from Intel before is that they've never been a process node behind before. Just wait until you see what they're going to have to do with their server lineups.
Intel announced their lineup for Cascade Lake-X, which is coming in November. As it's essentially a refresh of Sky Lake-X, performance isn't changed much. The big headline change is a dramatic price drop.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14925/intel-cascade-lakex-for-hedt-18-cores-for-under-1000
The problem for Intel's lineup is that they charge about $2000 for the 18-core Core i9-9980XE part that is the top of the Sky Lake-X lineup. For comparison, AMD will sell you a 16-core Threadripper 2950X for under $800 or a 32-core Threadripper 2990WX for $1800. Intel can argue that the per-core premium price is justified because they have better, faster cores.
The problem is that that case is, if not vanishing entirely, then certainly becoming a whole lot weaker. The Ryzen 9 3950X is bringing 16 cores down to $750 in November, and with clock speeds and IPC competitive with Intel's Sky Lake-X lineup. Also importantly, third generation Ryzen doesn't suffer from the odd memory controller configuration of first and second generation Threadripper. You could make a case that the 18-core Core i9-10980XE will likely be a little faster than the Ryzen 9 3950X, both in single-threaded and highly-threaded workloads. But only a little faster, not a lot.
So if the $2000 price tag seems steep today, it will seem ridiculous then. As such, Intel slashed its price to about $1000. The rest of the Cascade Lake-X lineup also sees large price cuts as compared to the analogous Sky Lake-X parts, commonly around 40%.
As compared to currently available parts or even the coming Ryzen 9 3950X, there will be a decent case for Cascade Lake-X at the new prices. Cores and clock speeds aren't the only things that matter, and Cascade Lake-X notably has 4 channels of DDR4, as compared to two for third generation Ryzen. Cascade Lake-X will surely carry the drawback of burning a lot more power to be competitive on performance, however.
At least until third generation Threadripper shows up and blows it out of the water. Being a process node behind means not having great options available for where to place your lineup. The reason we've never seen this sort of price cuts from Intel before is that they've never been a process node behind before. Just wait until you see what they're going to have to do with their server lineups.
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