Well, we know it’s coming, it’s more a question of when? Intel has been working on a Coffee lake based 8-cores and a 16-threads processor for ages now. Yet still hasn’t released it. Some had hoped it would be released during Computex, but that was a no-go. However, an 8c/16t processor entry surfaced in the SiSoft Sandra database.
The 8-core part, as we’ve discussed many times already, would be a mainstream level processor coming from the Coffee Lake generation products, and yes that means it includes free Spectre and meltdown vulnerabilities as the architecture did not change. Reports still indicate that this processor will need a new Z390 chipset based motherboard for more enthusiast things, but would work on all current-gen 300-series motherboards as well. The 8C/16T CF-S CPU now has been spotted in the SiSoft Sandra database as well, clearly denoted as Coffee lake part. It’s an engineering sample that is purring at a rather low 2.60 GHz base clock, but here I like to add .. engineering sample one more time. Obviously, the part will be able to go much faster on base and inevitably the turbo frequency bins.
The processor is listed having 16 MB of L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache, a TDP is not specified but we expect the standard 95W – which seems to be Intel’s sweet spot. Intel’s technical database earlier on already showed at least two eight-core Coffee Lake processor, it also showed TDP at 95 and 80 watts. The desktop part will be a 95W model, the 80W version would be a Xeon. The listing describes test procedures for the CPUs. Earlier this week in the SiSoft Sandra database some entries already popped up from engineering sample 8-core processors. Further specs like base and turbo frequency information have not been shared, this entry was, at the time, spotted by computerbase.
Intel a few weeks ago already showed the Z390 chipset for the new 8-core parts, by accident as the info was pulled a day later. Z390 will support all Coffee Lake generation desktop processors but would also be compatible for the next-generation. It however is and will be a chipset intended for 8-core Coffee Lake CPUs. Z390 will get an LGA1151 socket using the traditional DMI 3.0 chipset-bus (which basically is an x4 PCIe link lane up/downlink. Similar to the Z370 chipset, it’ll have 24 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes. Also similar is storage at six SATA 6 Gbps ports with AHCI and RAID support; and up to three 32 Gbps M.2/U.2 connectors. LAN remains the same as well. 1 GbE, Intel recommends their Wireless-AC 9560 card for the motherboard manufacturers to pair this chipset with for 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5. Some differences are spotted though, USB is configured at six 10 Gbps USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, ten 5 Gbps USB 3.1 gen 1 ports.
Below you can check out the new SiSoft database entries, I added the Z390 block diagram as well. So yeah, Core i7 8800k sounds good? All that remains left is a price, of course. I expect roughly 60 bucks per core, say something in the 450~500 USD range. To be released in the fall.
