With 18 CPU cores, Intel’s upcoming Core i9 Extreme Edition processor may be ahead of AMD’s new 16-core Ryzen Threadripper CPU in terms of the core count. But it turns out AMD’s high-end chip will one-up Intel’s in another way.
The Core i9 Extreme Edition has 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes. The Ryzen Threadripper chip has 64.
We’ll probably need to wait a little while to know which chip offers better all-around performance, but the additional PCIe 3.0 lanes gives you more options for connecting high-performance graphics cards, storage solutions, or other peripherals.
AMD is also hinting that there won’t just be a single Threadripper chip. Instead, there will be multiple options, including models with “up to” 16 cores and 32 threads. But every version will have the same 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes, 4-channel DDR4 memory support, and X399 chipset.
AMD says ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI all plan to launch Threadripper-compatible motherboards this summer.