Out the way, Core i7, there's a new king in town. AMD seems to have rediscovered its mojo with the release of crowd-pleasing Ryzen processors, but in doing so may have awoken a sleeping giant filled with renewed resolve. That giant is Intel, and after years of unchallenged supremacy it is responding to the new threat by going into all-out attack.

The onslaught arrives in the form of the Core X-Series, a range of new 14nm CPUs described as Intel's most powerful, most scalable desktop processors to date. In an effort to appeal to a wide range of enthusiasts, prices start at $242 and extend right the way up to $1,999 for the all-singing, all-dancing Core i9-7980XE.

Said chip will boast a whopping 18 cores and 36 threads, but isn't expected to ship until Q4. For the time being power users will have to make do with the 10-core, 20-thread Core i9-7900X, priced at $999 and introduced as the first ever Intel Core i9 processor. All sounds rather good, however there are signs that Intel's retort to Ryzen has been fast tracked, resulting in uncertain availability, confusing segmentation and a few eyebrow-raising decisions.