At Computex, Intel announced the X Series of CPUs that includes a new Core i9 processor, designed for advanced gaming, VR and content creation and extending up to an ‘Extreme Edition’. The chips offer more cores and the Extreme Edition of the i9 has 18 cores and 36 threads, while i7 CPUs in the X Series have from six to ten with eight to twenty threads with caches from 15MB to 25MB. Within hours of release, the chips had been overclocked to 5.7GHz. Pricing is from $242 to $1,999.
The company also announced a new x299 chipset that has no graphics, but supports 14 USB ports and 8 SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, with RAID built-in. The chipet has support for up to 44 lanes of PC Express for support of up to 12K game play, using four graphics cards, the firm said. The chipset, like the X Series CPUs, can be overclocked and supports Intel Rapid Storage Technology for PCI Express-based SSDs.
Compute Card to Ship
Intel announced its Compute Card (a computing platform that is just bigger than a credit card (95mm x 55mm x 5mm (3.7″ x 2.2″ x 0.2″)) is to ship in August and will be available in four configurations (see table below)
| Processor | 7th Gen Intel Core i5 vPro (i5-7Y57) processor | 7th Gen Intel Core i3 (m3-7Y30) processor | Pentium N4200 processor | Celeron N3450 processor |
| Memory | 4GB DDR3 | 4GB DDR3 | 4GB DDR3 | 4GB DDR3 |
| Storage | 128GB Intel SSD | 128GB Intel SSD | 64GB eMMC | 64GB eMMC |
| Connectivity | Intel Wireless-AC 8265 (2×2 .11ac & Bluetooth 4.2) | Intel Wireless-AC 8265 (2×2 .11ac & Bluetooth 4.2) | Intel Wireless-AC 7265 (2×2 .11ac & Bluetooth 4.2) | Intel Wireless-AC 7265 (2×2 .11ac & Bluetooth 4.2) |
Partners for the card include Contec, Dell, ECS, Foxconn, Lenovo, LG Display, MoBits Electronics, NexDock, Sharp, Seneca, Smart Technologies, Suzhou Lehui Display and TabletKiosk.
Intel also mentioned an “Always On” device developed with Asus (and clearly aimed at the “Always connected” devices based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 + Windows 10). The PC is code-named Kukuna.
In its keynote, Intel also showed a new smartphone with WiGig being used to drive an HTC Vive headset without wires.
Analyst Comment
The Compute Card looks like an interesting option to convert ‘dumb’ monitors to intelligent devices. Intel showed an AIO from LG that has a Compute Card slot that powers the device. Intel’s press release specifically listed LG Display, rather than electronics. Assuming this is not a mistake, it would suggest that LG may be building displays that just need the card to make them ‘Smart’. Intel is optimistic that the Card may get into TVs, although the cost to do that may be a bit much, but smart signage certainly looks like a positive potential application.
Intel also trailed the 8th generation of Core processors. Few details were released, but Intel is claiming a 30% performance boost.
