The Devil enters the Canyon: Intel announces its newest CPUs

Intel finally announced its newest CPU lineup today. Codenamed “Devil’s Canyon”, these upgraded Haswell overclocking ‘K’ series SKUs will launch as two parts: an i7 and an i5.

The i7-4790k is the big brother of the two; although they are both quad code parts, the i7 also features HyperThreading for eight total threads. The 4790k is the first consumer processor from Intel to reach 4.0GHz as a base frequency, whereas its turbo frequency can even reach 4.4GHz. The i5 has also received a speed bump, albeit a more modest one.  The processors should be compatible with all 9-series motherboards, plus with some 8-series ones, as long as the motherboard manufacturers have updates their BIOSes. The processors also have an upgraded package of the CPU, plus Intel has also reworked part of the power delivery around the FIVR to give a cleaner power delivery, for those of you who are into sub-zero cooling.

Intel also announced the availability of the new Pentium Processor Anniversary Edition, a fully unlocked 3.2 GHz dual core Pentium and 3MB of L3 cache. These processors appeal to the more price-conscious among us, but they retain the crazy overclocking potential of their big brethren, so it should be fun to watch people trying to overclock them like crazy.

According to Anandtech, the exact date these CPUs will be available is still unknown, with journalists expecting to receive the first reviewing samples in the following weeks. So stay tuned!