This weekend I was planning to publish the first Linux benchmarks for Intel's incredibly powerful Core i7 5960X Haswell-E processor with X99 motherboard and DDR4 system memory. Unfortunately, all I can tell you now is that it's smoking, quite literally!

The testing has unfortunately been delayed again since when powering up the X99 motherboard for the first time, it had a quick flame and then smoke from two locations. The motherboard in question was the MSI X99S SLI Plus.

At the end of August, Intel released the Core i7 5960X Haswell-E processor that has eight physical cores plus Hyper Threading to yield a total of sixteen threads. The CPU has a 3.0GHz base frequency and up to 3.5GHz Turbo Frequency, 20MB Smart Cache, 40 PCI Express 3.0 lanes, and ushers in DDR4 memory to the desktop with having DDR4-2133MHz support. By all indications this is an incredible beauty albeit pricey with a retail price currently above $1,000 USD.