Due to the numerous iterations of the upcoming Intel Kaby Lake, there has been confusion regarding the release date of some of its variations. As stated in a report from the Verge back in May, the base processor is going to be released this year, presumably in October, but a new report reveals the more powerful Kaby Lake-X is not yet due until late 2017.
According to a report from Benchlife (via WCCFTech), the Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X will be built using different architectures but will feature the same base platform. It is revealed to be an entirely new platform known as the Kaby Lake Platform Control Hub, supported by an LGA 2066 socket.
The report continues to point out that the chips will begin production in Q3 2017 and will launch into retail stores and be used for next year's products such as laptops and desktops by Q3 or Q4 2017. This indicates that the i7 iteration of the Kaby Lake-X processor might see a late October to early December 2017 release.
It is further hinted that the Kaby Lake-X will only require 16 lanes PCIe 3.0 to run 4 cores in contrast to the 44 lanes and 6 cores of the Skylake-X, indicating that the former requires less hardware to accomplish the same amount of processing load. However, it is speculated that the Cannonlake chips, a 10nm chip, will be even more efficient.
While these iterations of the Kaby Lake chips are launching by the end of next year, the base version is set to launch by this October and the Kaby Lake-U and Kaby Lake-S are rumored to be released by early 2017, presumably by March of next year although Intel has yet to make any official confirmations.
Intel has yet to make any official statement regarding the leaked information and if any of the indicated release windows are even accurate. As the company has not yet responded the release dates should still be taken as pure speculation.
