Intel is reportedly on track to soon introduce its Basin Falls HEDT platform that will headlined by a 12-core/24-thread Skylake-X CPU, the first for the giant chipmaker. A new report said unveiling will happen on May 30 with the release date set before the end of the following month or June.
In a report, WCCFTech said Intel is ready to reveal the Core i7 Skylake-X processing chip that will run on Basin Falls. The chip is dubbed as the first 12-core Intel CPU for the desktop system and is optimized for extreme gaming, virtual reality or VR, content creation and overclocking.
Immediately following the Basin Falls debut is the intro for the X299 platform that the same report will be made public via the Computex 2017 in Taiwan.
The Basin Falls X-series, according to WCCFTech, will be made available in five SKUs - four of which under the Skylake architecture and will be released in 12, 10, 8 and 6 core models with identical TDP rating of 140W. There will be a four-core model that is based on the Kaby Lake architecture or the enhanced Kaby Lake-X with TDP of 112W.
All the SKUs will hit the market as variants for the Core i7-7000 series, which the report said will make use of the LGA 2066 socket.
No pricing details were mentioned so far but it seems written in stone that Basin Falls will start flexing its muscle by June or July this year. As expected, Intel's decision to provide a 12-core CPU desktop solution is seen as knee-jerk reaction to the recently rolled out Ryzen 7 and 5 processors that were available in multi-core SKUs with default overclocking features.
But Intel boasting of a 12-core Skylake CPU will soon be challenged by AMD again as WCCFTech took note of the rumor that by the third quarter of the year the latter will let loose of a 16-core/32-thread Ryzen chip that will run on the X399 platform.
In such an event, the AMD-Intel chip rivalry is seen to further intensify that likely will lead to pricing war between the two companies. And that could translate to CPU buyers presented with powerful processing options but with reasonable pricing.
AMD's pricing model for the Ryzen CPUs will likely force Intel to implement attractive price cuts even for the 12-core Skylake processor, the report said.