Originally Posted by
Remilia
Well, original question seems to be what is the point in Kabylake-X and who is it for, which in this case actually is a very good question.
It's on an Intel proclaimed HEDT platform typically meant for prosumers or business. However the Kabylake chip is a consumer chip with it's GPU fused off with a higher power budget. For a business it really depends on what their workload is, doesn't really matter which brand you're going for, both has it's up sides and downs. Going for CPU rendering or compiling, go for Ryzen. For file compression or AVX heavy work load Skylake-X makes more sense. However those kinds of work loads tend to be better suited for multiple core solutions.
So it brings up the weird 4c/4t and 4c/8t one. It makes no sense for a business or prosumer to go for these because the workloads don't suit it. It's advertised for higher clock and higher power budget for overclocking, but that's not a business focus, that's a gaming orientated focus. Businesses want things to work out of box so they're not the ones to tinker with overclocking. Prosumers want stability also so overclocking is also not a great idea. Prosumer works tend to be a lot more multi-core utilized too so why go for low core high clock solutions. Rendering, 3D, or filtering are the ones I'm thinking of tend to favor high core count. The type you'd see in 'contract work'. So, what's the point in a low core high clock again on a prosumer/business platform.
So what's left are enthusiasts, either in gaming or overclockers. To get the easy one over with, overclockers, plain simple, makes sense. They'll delid the damn thing anyways and overclock it for that sweet epeen, but they do this with practically every chip they can, so that's not really saying much.
So what's left are gaming enthusiasts. The problem is one of the main reasons to go HEDT was PCI-E lanes. So then noting it only has 16 lanes total for use after chipset and all that. For example 2x PCI-E SSD (M.4 or slot, whatever) takes up 4x chipset and then 4x CPU lanes. Or a network card for those amazeballs 10Gbps network bandwidth (pointless for gaming imo, great for network heavy related stuff). With 28 lanes usable this wouldn't be a problem. So you face the same limitations of the consumer chipset. You get the same chip with the same limitations in a more expensive package using more power and a tiny bit of OC potential.
So we go back to what's the point of Kabylake-X. It makes no sense for business or prosumers to do it cause their workload doesn't fit it.
Upgrading is a poor excuse. Remember Kabylake-X i7-7740X costs $339 MSRP. Skylake-X i7-7800X, 6c/12t with the typical 28 lanes, quad channel, etc etc. It then makes no sense for a prosumer to not spend $50 more and get all the HEDT benefits and more cores than to spend another $389 minimum to upgrade it again.
So really, who is this targeted to? Super overclockers? Gamers have the 7700k in existent for those that want it. So who is it targeted for? These two products make no sense whatsoever.