File this one firmly under ‘r’ for rumour (or ‘s’ for speculation, depending on how you like to do your imaginary filing) but there are several reports circulating about Intel’s top-end desktop CPU in the company’s Broadwell-E X99 range. The Core i7-6950X, as the unconfirmed reports have it, will be a 10-core, 20-thread chip that’ll set you back something in the vicinity of $1500. Gosh.
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German tech site Computerbase.de is the originator of the rumour. If it’s true, thei7-6950X will become the first consumer desktop CPU to feature 10 cores, and will sit above the 8-core, 16-thread Haswell-E CPUs in Intel’s range.
However, it won’t be the first CPU to come with e $1500 price tag: theXeon E5-2697 Haswell server chip will set you back $2769.99 on Newegg at the time of writing. The difference here, of course, is that the rumoured Haswell-E chip isn’t server tech but intended for desktop use, which means if you can find some way to justify spending the price of an okay second-hand car on a single component, you’re going to be able to build a hell of a gaming PC with it.
Wccftech have procured an (unconfirmed) spec sheet which states thei7-6950X will run at 3.00/3.5GHz (boost), has a 25MB L3 cache and is compatible with X99 chipsets. That same sheet positions the CPU slightly lower in price at $999, and claims it’ll be released some time in Q2 2016.
However, for now these reports remain uncorroborated by the CPU’s manufacturer. I reached out to an Intel representative about the leak, who responded that the company are offering “no comment on future products, roadmaps, or rumours.”