 When Intel launched the Core i9, we got some CPUs with legitimately great performance, like the 7900X that we reviewed. But then we also got a bunch of confusion. We got the unnecessary Kaby Lake X. There was that whole thing with the bootable CPU-based NVMe RAID that Intel still hasn't fully enabled on their desktop for fear of encroaching on their lucrative Xeon market. To say it was sort of disorganized would probably be an understatement. But that was yesterday. Today is all about a new threat to Xeon. From Intel themselves, again. The Core i9 7980XE Extreme Edition with 18 cores and a claimed teraflop of compute power. It's a true halo product. A shining beacon of the technology that will become affordable in the future. And you can have it today. But it won't come cheap. And neither do Linus Tech Tips videos. Today's video is brought to you by Cyberpower's lineup of gaming desktops featuring Intel's 7th generation Core i7 processors. Check them out at the link below. So what's a high core count Core i9 anyway? Think of it this way. It's like higher core count. Anything with more than the last generation flagship 10 core is a high core count. So the Core i9 7980XE 18 core is actually launching alongside a whole range of HCC chips. The 16 core Core i9 7960X along with a 14 core and 12 core and... Okay, real talk Intel. I love you guys. But your naming scheme? You guys are actually stepping on your own mobile CPU model numbers. It's confusing. Anywho, in terms of features, there's no real surprises here. You've got your Turbo Boost 3.0, hyper threading giving you up to 36 threads, 44 PCI express lanes, etc. All of these new processors are fully enabled with the features that we've come to expect from a Skylake X Core i9 on the X299 platform. So what are we testing then aside from core counts and clock speeds? I'll tell you. Yeah, it's really just the core counts and clock speeds. But just doesn't do it just this. Because this is more added horsepower than we've seen in one generation since the Core series began. Think about it. Last gen, the best we had this side of Xeon was 10 cores on the i7 6950X. And the big reveal this year was supposed to be a new 10 core for about half its price, which we did get. But this fully fleshed out lineup looks like more than just a refresh. It looks like a fresh, more competitive Intel. I guess they didn't want another AMD sees a gap in the lineup and goes for it scenario like with Ryzen 7. Which isn't to say though that AMD has nothing competitive. Their Ryzen Threadripper 1950X also rocks almost as many cores at 16 with 32 threads while costing a cool $700 less. Could the new Core i9s really justify that much of a price gap? To find out, we grabbed HEDT CPUs from Team Blue and Team Red. And then for good measure, a Core i9 7900X and the 22 core Xeon E5 2699V4 from last gen. All of them were spec'd out with otherwise identical hardware right down to the cooler. We'll begin with our productivity workloads, which actually sees a pretty significant performance difference between the Core i9 and even the 22 core Xeon in 7-Zip and CPU Mark. While Asus RealBench shows a predictable curve for the i9s in the image editing test, but finds them for some reason trailing Threadripper here despite multiple reruns to confirm. Smaller Blender scenes like the BMW and Fishy Cat see a slight difference between the 16 and 18 core chips, while the more complex scenes like Gooseberry and Pavilion Barcelona stretch things out a bit more. Interestingly, Threadripper manages to stay on Intel's heels here. It generally outperforms its price competitor, the 7900X, thanks to its much higher core count, but in a twist ending that surprised no one, its lower per thread performance does hurt it in some cases. Now while gaming isn't in any way the focus of this class of CPU or this video, I mean, we had to test it, and honestly the results were, as expected, pretty underwhelming. The high core count Core i9s pull out some early leads at 1080p and Deus Ex, but slip and rise of the Tomb Raider and then everything levels off at 4K for both titles. The sole exception out of our gaming tests then becomes Counter-Strike Go, which at both 1080p and 4K shows a significant lead for Team Blue. Synthetics meanwhile give a slight edge to Team Blue in 3DMark, and Unigine Superposition sees similar scores across the board. The most interesting thing about gaming on any of these is how thoroughly trounced they all get by a Core i7 for a fraction of the price in all but the great equalizer, 4K, though this too should surprise no one. Maybe thermals will be more interesting. Now actually looks like all of our processors stayed nice and cool with an H115i, but the higher base clock of the 7960X actually put it closer to Threadripper in that department. Power consumption is also pretty straightforward, more cores, more juice, but with that said our Threadripper platform in general seems to pull fewer watts from the wall. It should be noted here though that we didn't test over clocks for this review since our X299 board's VRM, well we don't trust it to handle overclocking one of these for long. And believe it or not we don't purposely try to ruin our equipment around here. Some preliminary readings though at 4.4 GHz have this CPU alone pulling about 500 watts off the 12 volt rail, so you're gonna want to pair this beast with a top of the line board like a Rampage Extreme and a heavy duty power supply in order to keep the juice flowing. I mean the wires get disquietingly warm at these kinds of loads. Or you could just not overclock. So finally then, value. Our weighted performance numbers put the newly launching Core i9-7980XC and 7960X at the top of the performance heap, but when we look at their pricing they do fall behind due to their massive price tags. With that said price isn't the only consideration at this level. It is likely that these CPUs will go into render machines and high-end workstations where, when you're deploying a lot of them at a time, performance per watt is also an important factor. And while they still fall behind the difference is predictably much less dramatic than price was. So what's the point of these products at all then? Because clearly they make no sense for the average consumer or gamer. That's true, but as long as you don't need ECC RAM support an HTC Core i9 workstation is going to be hands down the fastest you can buy with the capability to overclock it if you're an enthusiast prosumer for truly Xeon crushing raw performance. Let's just hope though that you'll be using your new monster to generate revenue for your business because otherwise the dent in your wallet versus the performance might not be worth it compared to well Intel's own lower-end lineup or AMD's Threadripper. Speaking of ripping, why don't you rip up your existing contract with your mobile carrier because Ting is the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and satisfaction first. Don't speak to a robot, get put through directly to a person if you have an issue and pay only for what you use with the average Ting bill coming in at only 23 bucks a month per device. If you're stuck in a contract and you switch to Ting they'll cover 25% of your cancellation fee up to 75 bucks and they have lowered mobile data rates now as well. It's just $10 a gig beyond the first gig. So go check them out at linus.ting.com and try out their savings calculator to see if you'll save. Then when you sign up use our link because you'll get 25 bucks in service credit or towards a new device. So thanks for watching guys, thanks again to Ting for sponsoring this video and well if you guys didn't like this video you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. Also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one as well as our community forum which you should totally join.