A
s we were writing this review, Intel’s new 18-core,
36-thread CPU was still over a week away from
launching, so we only had a rough idea how much
the Core i9-10980XE will cost, which is expected to be around
£1,000 inc VAT in the UK. That’s expensive compared with
usual mainstream CPUs, but it’s significantly cheaper than its
predecessor, the Core i9-9980XE. Intel
has basically made some monumental
price cuts in order to counter the AMD
Ryzen 3950X (see p24).
The latter was rumoured to offer
similar performance to the Core
i9-9980XE, but for just £750 ,so the blue
team had to come up with a plan. Lacking
a 10nm desktop CPU die, its only option
was to use yet another refinement of
its 14nm manufacturing process, first
introduced on its high-end desktop
(HEDT) platform back on the X99 chipset
with Broadwell-E, along with price cuts.
This isn’t all bad news, though, as Intel’s
refining of its manufacturing process
enables it to reach higher frequencies.
For instance, its first 14nm 18-core
CPU, the Core i9-7980XE, which was
based on the Skylake-X architecture,
had a peak boost frequency of 4.2GHz
in Turbo Boost 2 and 4.4GHz using
Turbo Boost Max Technology 3. Those
figures have now increased to 4.6GHz
and 4.8GHz respectively with the Core
i9-10980XE, which sports frequenciesthat aren’t off the high clocks of Intel’s mainstream CPUs
such as the Core i9-9900K. It also has the promise of higher
overclocks, or at least reaching the same frequencies with
slightly less voltage.
Unlike AMD’s 3rd-gen Threadripper, though, the Core
i9-10980XE doesn’t require a new motherboard or chipset. It’s
compatible with existing X299 motherboards, although some
may require a BIOS update. As such, you can take advantage of
a mature platform that also has some motherboard offerings
below the £200 mark, making it a viable alternative for those
considering AMD’s X570 chipset and the Ryzen 9 3950X. The
Intel CPU costs £250 more, but it does have an edge once it’s
overclocked in some tasks, and its motherboards cost around
the same price too.
The main advantage, though, is that the X299 platform
offers quad-channel memory support and more PCI-E lanes
than mainstream platforms, and Intel has capitalised on this
situation by adding four more PCI-E lanes with its Cascade
Lake-X CPUs, increasing the count from 44 to 48. This means
that you don’t just get two more cores and four more threads
for that extra cash, but also significantly more bandwidth and
scope for multi-GPU setups and massive storage arrays.
There’s also support for up to 256GB memory and, as an
added sweetener, Intel has added support for Cascade Lake-X
CPUs with its Performance Maximizer automatic overclocking
tool. Otherwise, this CPU’s specifications are identical to those
of its predecessor. The Core i9-10980XE has 1MB of L2 cache
per core and 24.75MB of L3 cache, along with a TDP of 165W.
The rest of the Cascade Lake-X series differs to previous
generations of Intel’s HEDT CPUs too. There’s no longer
a 16-core model, which you might surmise is due to Intel
avoiding direct competition with AMD’s Ryzen 9 3950X.REVIEWS / PROCESSORS
S P E C
Base frequency
3GHz
Max boost frequency
4.8GHz
Core
Cascade Lake-X
Manufacturing process
14nm
Number of cores
18 x physical (36 threads)
Hyper-Threading
Ye s
Cache
24.75MB L3 cache, 16 x 1MB L2 cache
Memory controller
Quad-channel DDR4, up to 3000MHz
Packaging
LGA2066
Thermal design power (TDP)
165W
Features
Turbo Boost Max Technology 3, Turbo
Boost 2, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI / BMI1
+ BMI2, AVX-512, AVX2, AVX, AES,
SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMXINTELCORE i9
10980XE/£1,000 inc VAT
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.ukLGA2066 PROCESSOR