The latest AIDA64 beta update lists " preliminary support for the Intel Alder Lake-X CPU ." Since these are notes in an official software patch release, it's sufficient grounds to believe that Intel plans to revive its X-series of high-end desktop processors.
Intel's HEDT line hasn't been updated in a while, with Skylake-X and Cascade Lake-X being the latest Intel X-series processors. With those notes for AIDA 64 it looks like Intel will revive its HEDT lineup with Alder Lake, potentially offering PC users more core counts, more DRAM channels and support for more PCIe lanes.
Alder Lake could revive the X series of CPUs
Intel's 2019 Cascade Lake launch was the company's last HEDT release. Cascade Lake lacked PCIe 4.0 support, had a maximum of 18 cores, and for the most part contained only minor architectural revisions compared to the company's older Skylake-X series processors. AMD's Threadripper platform surpassed Intel's HEDT product lines in popularity . Moreover, the ever-increasing core counts of Intel's desktop products eroded the appeal of the Cascade Lake X platform, making a subseries solely for selling high-core-count CPUs redundant.
With the hybrid architecture showcased in the Alder Lake processors, Intel may have seen an opportunity to revitalize the company's HEDT product lines. This same hybrid architecture offers Intel significant room for experimentation should they wish to create a high-core-count range. Alder Lake X could be a high-performance core design, a hybrid CPU design with performance cores supported by efficiency cores. However, upon launch, it will have to compete with AMD's new Threadripper processors, which are releasing new models this year, if not next year. Furthermore, being a revision of a current CPU, its design and manufacturing process could have a very short cycle before reaching stores.
If Intel opts for a P core design for Alder Lake-X, it will be able to ship Alder Lake X with support for AVX512 instructions. This is great news for those using the AVX512 instructions, although its overall benefits are limited.
Source: Overclok3d
