It was all the way back in August of 2014 that Intel officially launched its Haswell-E based Core i7 series processors and its companion X99 chipset. At the time of its release, Haswell-E's top of the line, 8-core Core i7-5960X was easily the most powerful processor for multi-threaded workloads on desktop systems, though its somewhat lower frequencies allowed higher-clocked mainstream Core i7 series processors to pull ahead in single or lightly-threaded tasks.

For roughly 21 months, the Core i7-5960X has remained Intel's flagship Extreme Edition processor. Of course, we had more than a hunch a successor was in the works, and got to show you some enterprise-class Broadwell-E based processors in the interim. In addition, Intel has since released its mainstream Skylake-based Core series processors as well, but a true successor to the Extreme Edition remained relegated to the rumor mill ? and Intel's performance labs ? until now. Today, Intel is taking the wraps off of an entire family of Broadwell-E based Core i7 series processors, led by the new flagship, Core i7-6950X...