Intel is announcing the availability of its 14-, 16- and 18-core processors - Intel Core i9-7940X, Intel Core i9-7960X and Intel Core i9-7980XE processors - which begin shipping today.

The new LGA 1151 chips, codenamed Coffee Lake, are launching along with the associated Z370 chipset.

While the entire Intel Core X-series processor family delivers on the promise of rich experiences that require significant compute power, the Extreme Edition brings a new level of power to content creators, enabling extreme mega-tasking, a platform for editing and rendering high-resolution 4K and virtual reality (VR) video, and a full studio on your PC.

This new family introduces the first 6-core Intel Core i5 desktop processor and first 4-core Intel Core i3 desktop processor. The family offers a wide range of performance options with unlocked "K" processors that deliver maximum tuning flexibility at each brand level and up to 40 platform PCIe 3.0 lanes for system expandability on graphics, storage and I/O. These processors are supported with new Intel Z370 chipset-based motherboards.

The top of the product stack - the Intel Core i7-8700K - is Intel's best gaming desktop processor ever. It is capable of 4.7 GHz maximum single-core turbo frequency, the highest frequency ever from Intel thanks to Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0.

Acording to Intel, compared with 7th Gen Intel Core, gamers gain up to 25 percent more frames per second on demanding games like Gears of War 4. Or you can edit 4K 360-degree videos is up to 32 percent faster compared with the previous generation - plus,content editing is up to 65 percent faster compared with a 3-year-old PC.

The 8th Gen Intel Core unlocked "K" processors will overclock to higher levels than prior generations. Intel has added new features to enhance the experience, including per core overclocking, max memory ratio up to 8,400 MT/s, real-time memory latency control, extended PLL trim controls, enhanced package power delivery, and updated Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and Intel Extreme Memory Profile.

By adding Intel Optane memory to desktop computer with an 8th Gen Intel Core processor, Intel says users can expect to gain additional accelerated system responsiveness, up to 2.1 times faster compared with a 5-year-old desktop with HDD alone.

The extra cores on the i7-8700K do push the base frequency down 500 MHz from the Kaby Lake i7-7700K, although the boost frequency is 200 MHz higher. Turbo Boost helps each core hitt these published clockspeeds. This means that if you throw TDP limits into the wind, turning on a motherboard's multi-core enhancement should get you a true 4.7GHz 6-core CPU without any real overclocking.

Intel's published prices for these new processors are notably higher than their 7th Gen counterparts, especially for the high performance K models. Whereas the list price for a 7700K was $305, it's $359 for an 8800K. Similarly, a top-end i5 has gone from $217 for the 7600K to $257 for the $8600K. The price increases for the non-K processors are lower - just $31 for the 8700 non-K, for example - but overall the entire generation is more expensive across the board.

The new Z370 chipset that supports the CPUs requires motherboards with improved power delivery over the previous models, to support the higher demands of more cores. They also support DDR4-2666 memory officially now.

Intel is sticking with 14nm again. However the upshot of this is that Coffee Lake is the first CPU family coming out of Intel built on their updated 14++ process.