I think that intel is trolling its customers. And here is why:
I decided to build a new system around Q3 2017. I had a six core 12 thread CPU (core-i7 970) back from early 2010/2011 which was still performing good 7 years later but I wanted to build a system that would be future proof in terms of performance and also windows 10 optimized and certified. The board that was housing the i7-970 was only up to windows 8 compatible and windows 7 certified. Also, in terms of performance, it was PCIexpress 2.0, USB2, SATA2 performance so it couldn't take full advantage of modern GPUs and peripherals. Windows 7 is nearing its end of support by 2020 so I thought that it would be a good time to upgrade to a windows 10 platform to give me another ~ 10 years of support for the OS and hardware. Naturally a six core / 12 thread CPU would be enough but I was impatient to wait for the 8700 that was released just a few weeks later and also I wanted to build something that would offer more than enough in terms of performance and raw power. While at the same time not exceeding a ~1000€ limit for the CPU, Motherboard and RAM. Well, with the CPU cooler that I had to purchase for this 7820x beast, I exceeded this limit ..
But anyway that is not the point. To understand what I am trying to say lets take a look at the 8-core 16-thread desktop segment of intel core family of CPUs. And please focus on the following 3 models: i7-7820x, i7-9800x and i9-9900K. The 1st two belong to the Skylake-X family of the X-series of processors. The last one is a "9th generation" Coffee-Lake series. Now the i7-9800X and the i9-9900K were released in Q4-2018 whereas the 1st one is the oldest of the three, released back in Q2-2017. And now lets compare their relative performance:
i7-7820X Vs i9-9900K , i7-9800X Vs i9-9900K and finally i7-7820x Vs i7-9800X.
What do you make out of this? All I can say is that the X-series owners get virtually zero performance gain across their platforms over a one and a half year difference. The 9800X is just a joke and a spit in the face of the x299 platform owners. This processor should have been faster than at least as fast as the 9900K. But it is vice versa. It has practically the same performance with its older brother and it costs almost 50% more. Also it produces more heat as it requires 25Wattage more power.
I don't understand intel's philosophy, honestly. Who is going to buy this 9800x? What is the reason for this CPU to exist in the 1st place? For the extra 16 PCIe lanes? or for the extra 3% of performance gain? If someone can see something I cannot please enlighten me. Opinions are welcome.