Rumour: Intel’s Coffee Lake CPUs to bring six cores to i7, i5 and laptops

Before Intel ushers in 10nm with the launch of Cannon Lake, we still have one more round of 14nm CPUs to get through in the form of Coffee Lake. We are expecting to see Coffee Lake make its way to the desktop in 2018 but it looks like some details are hitting the web ahead of time, with reports indicating that Intel will be shifting to six core chips for Core i7, Core i5 and even laptop processors.

The latest information on Coffee Lake comes from CPCHardware, whose report details several upcoming six core SKUs. We'll start at the top with the  high-end i7 8700K CPU. which will supposedly feature six cores and 12 threads with hyper threading enabled. The report claims a 3.7GHz base clock speed and a 95W TDP. From there, we should also get a locked non-K i7 8700, with a slightly lower base frequency, coming in at 3.2GHz.

Some i5s were also detailed, the rumour is that these CPUs will also feature six cores but as usual, hyper threading will be removed to help differentiate it from the Core i7. The Core i5 8600K is said to feature a 3.6GHz base clock speed and a 95W TDP. There is also said to be a lower end Core i5 8400.

The final talking point from the report is that Intel may produce pure mobile six-core CPUs for the first time. Of course, these will also be lower power parts with 45W TDPs and lower clock speeds but it should be an interesting shift, especially with AMD's Ryzen mobile launch on the horizon.

KitGuru Says: While X299 seems to have done very little to slow down AMD's momentum with Ryzen so far, it looks like the true challenge may come with Coffee Lake early next year. What do you guys think of Intel's plans so far? Would mainstream six cores tempt you? 

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