Intel’s Kaby Lake-X processors are being discontinued. The CPUs were released with the X299 platform in mid 2017, Kaby Lake-X consisted of two four-core processors, the Core i5-7640X and the Core i7-7740X, that were the lowest-end parts compatible with the platform. Intel’s justification for producing Kaby Lake-X was that it served as an entry point to the company’s HEDT platform.
Kaby Lake-X didn’t really unlock any benefits of the expensive X199 motherboards it required. For example, when paired with a Kaby Lake-X processor, X299’s full potential of quad channel memory and 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes is cut to only two channels and 16 lanes.
Team Red’s (AMD) X370 platform gave users access to a high number of PCIe lanes along with cheap processor and motherboard options.
