Eight-Core Intel Coffee Lake Processor Reportedly Set For Summer Release

Intel reportedly is planning to release an eight-core Coffee Lake S processor later this year that will help the company compete with AMD's multicore chips for high-end PCs.

Tech blogs Videocardz and WccfTech found evidence this week of an upcoming Coffee Lake S processor with eight cores and 16 threads in Futuremark's 3DMark database, set for a summer release.

Intel, Santa Clara, Calif., did not respond to a request for comment.

The new eight-core Coffee Lake S CPU could be part of Intel's plans to better compete with AMD, which is planning to release the second generation of its budget-friendly Ryzen processor in April. The upcoming high-end Ryzen model reportedly will have eight cores and 16 threads.

Randy Copeland, president and CEO of Velocity Micro, a systems builder and Intel partner based in Richmond., Va, said more competition in the high-end PC space benefits everyone.

"I have no expectation that Intel will be standing still and allow AMD to pull out any advantage, but everything always comes down to price/performance, so we will need to wait and see where everything stacks up," he said in an email. "Intel has proven to be a fierce competitor, so nothing would surprise me."

The eighth-generation Coffee Lake chips were officially introduced last October as part of Intel's Core chip family for desktop PCs. At this year's CES, Intel revealed a quad-core Coffee Lake processor with eight threads that incorporates AMD graphics technology.

The Coffee Lake CPUs are not compatible with existing 200-series motherboards, which miffed several systems builder partners last year because it meant they would have to redesign their systems.

With the new Coffee Lake S processor, it's expected the chip will only be compatible with the upcoming Intel Z390 motherboard, TechRadar noted as part of the 3DMark database information.