Intel’s 10-core i9-7900X Final Specs Leaked: 4.0GHz Base, 4.5GHz Boost Clocks

New details on Intel’s 10-core Skylake X CPU, the i9-7900X, have surfaced and it looks like the chip could be more powerful than anyone expected.

Ukrainian tech site Overclockers.ua (via TPU) spotted the Core i9-7900X in a SiSoft Sandra benchmarking database. The chip appears to be mistakenly labeled as an i7 part, which is possible because of the lack of official support for the Core i9 branding.

The Core i9-7900X final specs kind of deviate from what we saw in a previous leak which pegged the chip at as featuring clock speeds of 3.30GHz base and 4.30GHz Turbo Boost. But, it seems that the CPU will leverage much higher stock speeds.

According to the SiSoft report, Intel’s 10-core Skylake X will be clocked at 4.0GHz base and 4.5GHz Turbo Boost. These are extremely high clock speeds than you would expect from a 10-core part.

Considering the chip was expected to run at far lower clock speeds, some have speculated this could be a revision on Intel’s behalf to counter the potential threat from AMD’s Ryzen HEDT platform.

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The competition between Intel and AMD has been raging this year since the launch of Ryzen. Intel Skylake X will compete directly with AMD’s Threadripper lineup featuring up to 16 cores.

AMD’s HEDT platform, code named Whitehaven, includes support for quad-channel DDR4 memory and up to 44 PCIe lanes. Whitehaven not only offers more cores compared to Skylake X, but more I/O, storage, and L3 Cache as well.

Coupled with the value proposition offered by AMD’s Zen architecture, Threadripper seems to have an edge over the Skylake X. This should mean if Intel is to hold its performance crown, it will have to do more than offering high clock speeds; that is to launch its Core i9 Skylake X with a price cut for maximum effect.

Apart from clock speeds, another juicy bit of information revealed by the SiSoft leak is the motherboard that was used. You can see the board supporting i9-7900X is, as-of-yet-unknown, X299 Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 7. Of course, X299 is the next-gen Intel chipset that will support forthcoming Core i9 series processors and platform features.

Other Core i9-7900X specs confirmed by this listing include 10MB of level two cache with 1MB for each core, and a TDP rating of 175W. The chip will also support 44 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes.