The next Intel 9th-Gen Core i7 processor can not have hyper-threading

An alleged leak listed on an unsecured Chinese forum (now deleted) suggests that Intel will not provide hyper-threading technology on its ninth generation Core i7-9700K processor . This news is remarkable because it would be the first part of Intel Core i7 in recent history served without hyper-threading. Does the company plan to abandon this technology on all future nth generation chips without the Core i9 label?

If you are unsure of what is hyper-threading, here is a watered down explanation. A thread is simply an ordered sequence, or flow, of instructions provided to the processor. By default, a single physical processor core can handle a stream, so if you have a quad-core processor, it can handle four lanes of instructions simultaneously. Hyper-threading means that the operating system sees twice the base number, sending eight flow instructions to a four-core chip (two flows per physical core).

Intel introduced hyper-threading early 2002 in its Xeon processors for servers followed by Pentium 4 desktop processors later this year. According to Intel, hyper-threading increases the throughput of the processor, thus improving its overall performance. You can basically do more without bogging down the processor.

Of course, the leak of Core i7-9700K processor can be completely wrong. Before it was removed from the Chinese forum, the chip listed as an eight-core, eight-wire chip, with a base speed of 3.6 GHz and a maximum speed of 4.9 GHz. It was originally supposed to be Intel's successor to the current six-core and twelve-core Core i7-8700K desktop processor.

That said, here is what we saw regarding Intel's ninth generation desktop processors. Note that all three have a power of 95 watts:

Keep in mind that these three chips will not be based on the ninth generation "Ice Lake" of Intel "Design, but a refresh of its eighth generation Coffee Lake-S architecture for desktop processors.These three chips will supposedly arrive in early August next to a new motherboard chipset, Z390, supporting processors.Note also that Intel has introduced its first batch of eighth-generation processors – based on a refined design of "Seventh-Generation" Kaby Lake – in the same release window. Last year

The timing does not seem unusual as AMD is activated its second generation of desktop processors Ryzen is packing eight cores for the mainstream market. Last batch includes the Ryzen 7 2700X and Ryzen 7 2700 chips with eight cores and sixteen wires, and the Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 5 2600 chips with six cores and twelve wires. Intel definitely needs an eight-core solution that targets the mainstream market.

According to the graph above, Intel seems to lock its hyper-threading technology to the premium brand Core i9, even if it is not the case. official case at all. But of the three, the Core i9 part of Intel is the only one to double the number of threads. What will be interesting to see are the prices compared to the current generation of AMD eight-core Ryzen desktop processors. Maybe removing hyper-threading in the Core i7 part is a way to keep the price competitive with current Ryzen chips from AMD.