Intel New HEDT X299 Chipset Platform Revealed

While much of the focus thus far has been on Kaby Lake, Intel also has other chips set to launch as well. Based off of previous generations, Intel usually releases the extreme HEDT platform a  year after the mainstream launch. Since Skylake launched last year, it’s about time for Intel to move on with Skylake-X CPUs relatively soon. While Intel has been silent on a launch, the company has revealed a new chipset.

To replace the X99 platform which has been with us since Sandy Bridge-E, Intel readying the new X299 chipset. Moving straight past X199, it looks like Intel wants to have uniform branding on all their platforms. This aligns Skylake-X with Kaby Lake which will use the 200 series chipsets. Along with the major naming change, the socket is also getting a major upgrade. Since X99, the sockets have always been variations of LGA 2011 with 2011 pins. X299 will feature the new LGA 2066 which obviously has more pins at 2066 total. Perhaps we will be getting more PCIe lanes, more cores or something along those lines.

Based off of previous reports, the expectation is that Skylake-X will only deliver the same core configurations as Broadwell-E. This means 6, 8 and 10 core CPUs without iGPUs attached. The major difference of course is the improved IPC compared to Broadwell. As you have noticed, Skylake-X now carries the X instead of the E as well. Finally, in a surprising move, there appears to be a quad-core Kaby Lake-X that will launch as well, presumably to offer the best single threaded performance. Hopefully, we’ll get more details about what’s to come soon.