Intel has a lot of new desktop products planned for later this year which will be part of their high-end and mainstream PC platforms. While Intel confirmed that they will unleash a 28 core part to tackle the ultra high-end enthusiast market, they will also refresh their current consumer desktop platforms which include the Coffee Lake-S and Skylake-X families.

Intel Coffee Lake-S Refresh To Get 8 Core CPUs and Z390 Motherboards, Skylake-X Refresh To Get 22 Core CPUs and X299 Refresh Motherboards

So after the announcement of Intel's 28 core part which will be part of the new Cascade Lake-X family, it was confirmed that later this year, Intel will offer not two but three different desktop solutions. These families will be segmented all the way from the entry level to the very premium high-end market. The following is what Intel's desktop family will look like in a few quarters:

Intel Cascade Lake-X (LGA 3647 / Ultra-Premium Desktop Market)Intel Skylake-X Refresh (LGA 2066 / High-End Desktop Market)Intel Coffee Lake-S Refresh (LGA 1151 / Mainstream Desktop Market)

These are the three families that we are expecting to release later this year but Intel will also be keeping the current lineups for the future since they are compatible across the same socket. In the mainstream range, the current Coffee Lake-S chips will be compatible with new platforms without an issue. Similarly, Skylake-X chips would work with the new platforms and the new CPUs that launch later this year will be compatible on current generation motherboards. The only Intel platform that is entirely new is the Cascade Lake-X platform which targets the ultra-premium HEDT niche and will be available on a new socket with an entirely new consumer HEDT chipset.

In our previous article, we confirmed that Skylake-X X299 platform is here to stay even after the launch of the Cascade Lake-X family. The reason is that Intel is targetting two different high-end desktop markets. The Core-X lineup is the tamer version while the Cascade Lake-X family aims to become the juggernaut of performance and would make X299 looks like child's play in comparison. Now there are more people in the APAC region confirming this like PCWatch who also have details on the launch schedules of the new processor families from Intel.

Intel's 8 Core Coffee Lake-S Processors Already With Manufacturers, Aiming September Launch Alongside Z390 Motherboards

According to PCWatch, Intel will be offering their first 8 core mainstream desktop processor to the consumer market in September 2019. We already got multiple glimpses of this chip a while ago and we can confirm today that board manufacturers already have the processor in their hands. The interesting thing that is mentioned here is that Intel's 8 core processors would be first arriving in the Xeon-E platform which is the mainstream server platform. This is expected to arrive sometime in July 2018.

A photo of the Intel 8086k processor. (Credit: Intel Corporation)

This means we are expected to see some early performance previews of the Intel 8 core part. The 8 core part is clearly a reaction to AMD delivering a better and faster 8 core solution to gamers and productivity enthusiasts compared to their already great Ryzen 7 1800X. Intel will be aiming their 8 core chip against the Ryzen 7 2700X which will be the top dog for the AMD team on the X470 platform till 7nm arrives. Motherboard manufacturers will also be offering the latest generation of Z390 motherboards which will be delivering more I/O and PCIe connectivity to consumers. Intel's 8 Core processors will have 95W and 80W SKUs and will be branded under the Core i9 segment with prices over the $400 US mark.

Intel Desktop Platform Chipset Comparison