The first quarter earnings call revealed that Intel is indeed shipping small quantities of Cannon Lake CPUs but the mass production and large-scale shipments will only be possible in 2019 due to production problems. This means that we will be getting 14nm based CPU this year as well and they will be called Intel Whiskey Lake.
While this has been confirmed by the CEO of the company there is little that we know about these Whiskey Lake CPUs. Reports claim that Intel will be adding 4+2 chips and 8+2 chips later on this year but that is something that has not been confirmed yet and should be taken with a grain of salt. But if reports are true then we could see an 8800K coming out paired with the Z390 motherboards. According to CFO Bob Swan:
“We think we’ve bit off a little too much in this case. It may not seem like a lot, but 10 percent [scaling factor] can make a lot of difference in this kind of the world.”
According to Intel CEO, the company has figured out the tweaks that need to be made but those have not been tested out yet and that could mean that if these fixes do not turn out to be effective then it could mean going back to the drawing board and yet another delay for Cannon Lake.
If that is the case then AMD will have a huge lead in the market by then as the upcoming Intel Whiskey Lake CPUs might not have much to offer keeping in mind they are based on the same 14nm process as previous chips. According to the CEO:
We continue to make progress on our 10-nanometer process. We are shipping in low volume and yields are improving, but the rate of improvement is slower than we anticipated. As a result, volume production is moving from the second half of 2018 into 2019. We understand the yield issues and have defined improvements for them, but they will take time to implement and qualify. We have leadership products on the roadmap that continue to take advantage of 14-nanometer, with Whiskey Lake for clients and Cascade Lake for the data center coming later this year.
Let us know what you think about Intel Whiskey Lake and whether or not you think this will be worth upgrading to.
