Intell Haswell-E, the latest iteration of the HEDT Platform, has a launch date of 29 August (originally mid September) and now it seems that a few days before release we are are getting some confirmation on the PCIE lanes. It turns out that the information leaked by Coolaler was correct and the i7-5820 will only have 28 lanes of PCIE 3.0 while the 5930 and the 5960X will have 40 lanes of PCIE 3.0 each.

Intel Core i7 5820K Haswell-E HEDT Processor to Feature Only 28 PCIE 3.0 Lanes

The leaked image (courtesy of EXPReview.com) shows some very interesting wording, stating that when the  i7-5820K is used, the number of PCI-E lanes will decrease. This will ofcourse result in the hexacore processor becoming unattractive to Multi GPU users although they should still have some playing room. With 28 lanes you are looking at 16x, 16x/8x, x8/x8/x8/x4 maximum GPU configuration while a normal 40 lane configuration would be 16x, 16x/16x, 16x/16x/8x or 8x/8x/8x/8x depending on the amount of GPUs you have. Considering the fact that this is PCI-E 3.0 we are talking about there is enough bandwidth for a 3-Way SLI or 4 Way Crossfire. However, if you really want that extra edge then you will have to upgrade to the i7-5930k.

The Haswell-E lineup was originally going to launch in mid September but Intel seems to have pushed forward the launch for reasons unknown. If I had to take a guess, I would say that they probably want SKU availability before the Next Gen GPU launch from Nvidia occurs. This castration of the PCI-E lanes is a deliberate attempt by Intel to price differentiate two very similar products, namely the Core i7-5930K and Core i7-5820K. Ivy Bridge-E suffered from very bad price differentiation and there was one clear performance/price winner. There is however no such case here. You have one set of SKUs with lane difference and one SKU with 2 more cores. Starting from the base unit, you will be paying around $300 for the full 40 PCI-E Lanes or around $600 more for 40 PCIE lanes and 2 more cores. Summarizing:

• Haswell-E and Intel X99 Chipset arrives on August 29th, pushed fourth from September 2014. These include the i7-5960X, i7-5930K and i7-5820K processors.
• The Core i7-5820K is allegedly 20% more expensive than its predecessor.
• The Core i7-5820K only has 28 PCIE Lanes as opposed to 40
• Probable pricing of the Haswell-E SKUs is $1108, $632 and $323 respectively.

#Intel 5820K to have 28 lanes of PCIE3 only. Haswell E coming on 29th. http://t.co/1zP6eBDbat.

— Usman Pirzada (@usmanpirzada) August 21, 2014