Intel this week revealed plans to discontinue its Kaby Lake-X processors. The chips will not be supported by the company’s upcoming X399 platform for high-end desktops, so initialization of their EOL program is not surprising. Interested parties will be able to get their Core i5/Core i7 processors in LGA2066 packaging for about a year, but they will need to order the chips by the end of November.

Intel on Monday announced plans to discontinue all versions (tray and boxed) of its Core i5-7640X and Core i7-7740X CPUs. PC makers and component resellers interested in these processors will have to order them by November 30, 2018. Intel will ship the final codenamed Kaby Lake-X chips by May 31, 2019, so technically interested parties have a year to buy these chips if they need them.

Intel introduced its Core i5-7640X and Core i7-7740X CPUs in mid-2017 in order to enable hardcore enthusiasts and professional overclockers to set overclocking records using quad-core Kaby Lake-X CPUs while taking advantage of the company’s latest HEDT platform. Usage of the X299-based motherboards with LGA2066 form-factor ensures better power supply to processors and thus helps to hit higher clocks. The plan was heavily criticized by product reviewers and motherboard makers since Kaby Lake-X CPUs require different voltages and memory kits than the high core count Skaylake-X CPUs. Furthermore, the launch of Intel’s six-core Coffee Lake processors in October made Kaby Lake-X products considerably less attractive.

Related Reading:

Source: Intel

Comments Locked

40 Comments

View All Comments

  • rtho782 - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    A relatively pointless product to begin with that only served to muddy the X299 water, this was made entirely pointless by 8700k.

    Good riddance.
  • MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    I agree wholeheartedly
  • Samus - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    Feel bad for anybody who bought one of these. Spent a whole lot of money for no upgrade path and a platform that's mostly outperformed for a fraction of the price by Coffee Lake :\
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    Wait, no upgrade path? Isn't every Sky Lake X CPU an upgrade path with more cores?
  • A Certain Someone - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    In that context, the 3rd gen core i5 user have a upgrade path to a core i7. You know what upgrade path means, don't you?
  • Death666Angel - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    Not the way you seem to define it. Upgrade path is the path on the same platform to something more powerful.
    If I get a Celeron CPU, my upgrade path is a Pentium, i3, i5, i7.
    You seem to mean upgrade path as in being able to put next generations CPUs into the same socket? Or use the same CPU with the next gen chipset? The first one seems to rather narrow minded while the second one just seems stupid.
  • ACE76 - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    Ryzen and Ryzen + all work on x370 and B350 boards...and Ryzen 2 will also...what point are you trying to make?
  • Cooe - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    Actually AM4 & TR4 are guaranteed support through 2020's Ryzen 4th Gen (Zen 2+, 7nm+ [potentially 7nm EUV]) as long as AMD sticks to their current roadmap & promises. Also the tech behind it pretty much guarantees 4th Gen will be AM4/TR4's last hurrah, as AMD's faux-tick/tock rollout schedule prevents Ryzen 4th Gen as a tweak & process enhancement refresh (Zen 2+) from making significant arch changes, aka like those required for DDR5 support; which AMD has said will deliniate the socket/platfrom transition. Aka just like AMD's roadmap says, Zen 3 / Ryzen 5th Gen is where the switch to DDR5 (and thus IMC) & a new socket/board platfrom will occur.

    (And I'm assuming when you said Ryzen 2 you meant Zen 2, aka the microarch of Ryzen 3rd Gen? Right? Zen (microarch) ≠ Ryzen (brand-name; think "Intel Core" for the other side of the fence). Not that it's impossible, but if they name official 7nm Zen 2 CPU line, "Ryzen 2" just a year after calling the previous line "Ryzen 2nd Gen" I'd be both extremely shocked & rather disappointed in AMD's marketing team lol.)
  • A Certain Someone - Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - link

    No that is not what you call an upgrade path. That is not very clear and subjective. If someone buy a i7-7700K then he doesn't have an upgrade path on the othe hand person with i7-7600K have an upgrade path to i7. So it's person specific. You can't generalize that.
    On the other hand if the same socket supports next gen CPU then you can generalize that the person with kaby lake has an upgrade path to cannon lake. That is what upgrade path means. i5 7th to i7 7th is an upgrade on the same path or architecture on the other hand i5 7th to i7 8th means an upgrade in a different path, hence called the upgrade path.
    So it means, yes you can upgrade your CPU depending on what you have but you don't necessarily have new upgrade path.
  • Manch - Thursday, May 3, 2018 - link

    The very definition of upgrade 1. raise (something) to a higher standard, in particular improve (equipment or machinery) by adding or replacing components.
    "upgraded computers"

    Having an upgrade path isn't CPU centric, generational or base on difficulty. If there is a way to upgrade it, you got an upgrade path. Whether its worth it or not is a different matter.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now