Intel has recently issued a new product change notification which applies to the 9th Gen Core X series “Skylake-X” HEDT processors. These lines of CPUs will not be considered as EOL or End of Life. Intel will no longer manufacture them, and microcode updates and other fixes, barring major emergencies, will cease after the ending date.
The 9th Gen Core X series “Skylake-X” is a derivative of the LGA2066 socket based on the Z390 chipset, featuring higher potential core clocks and core counts, with the top-end CPUs in the lineup heading into 16-core territory.
This ending of support will affect the entire 9th-Gen Core-X chips including the Core i9-9980XE. These include the boxed and tray versions of the i7-9800X, i9-9820X, i9-9900X, i9-9920X, i9-9940X, i9-9960X, i9-9980XE, and the Xeon W-2102, W-2104, W-2123, W-2125, W-2133, W-2135, W-2145, W-2155, W-2195 chips. The last orders for these chips will be taken on January 22, 2021.
This will mean that the prices of these CPUs are about to fluctuate. It will likely be cheaper for some time if you’re looking to replace a broken i9-9980XE, but that might not be true for long. After the last shipment rolls out, expect prices to trend upwards at some point. Although with 10th Generation ‘Cascade Lake X’ chips already out, this would take some time to happen, and only for niche users who want to have the older architecture.
The chips will continue to be shipped after the end date of January 22, 2021. The final shipments are expected to roll out by July 9, 2021. Product warranties and consumer protection laws will still apply if valid after this date though. So unless you’re a retailer who would have to deal with the lost stocks, you don’t really have to worry.
Intel making the change was very much expected, as Intel has moved on to the Cascade Lake-X (Core 10000X) for some time. Intel has moved away from the core HEDT market and towards a core refresh with the new Skylake chips. The company is trying to deal with the renewed competition from AMD in the arena of core counts. The 32-core 2nd-gen Threadrippers have pushed Intel onto the back foot and it just didn’t make sense to pour more money into the 9th generation of Intel CPUs.
The general response from the consumer market made this pretty clear. As only the Core i9-7980XE was able to reliably come out on top in terms of performance. However, the ludicrous pricetag of that CPU makes is a poor choice to many compare to AMD offerings.
