The way Intel distributes samples on processors to media remains a mystery, however, over in Romania the first review on the Core i9-10980XE surfaced. It's written by our colleague Tudor who tested Cascade Lake-X on an X299 platform and 32GB DDR4 running 3200 MHz.

The processor has 18 cores and remains on top of the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X in rendering and simulation tests but is only slightly better results than its predecessor. 

The top-of-the-range Intel high-end processor with 18 cores and 36 processing threads has a Base / Turbo frequency of 3.00 / 4.60 GHz with 24.75 MB of L3 cache, 72 PCI-Express 3.0 lines, DDR4 @ 2933 MHz Quad-Channel memory configuration and with a 165W TDP. This processor was compared with the consumer range of Intel and AMD, being the surprise that the AMD Ryzen 3900X despite having six fewer cores (12 cores + 24 threads) and a Dual Channel memory controller, keep the processor in check.

AMD stays close alright. If you focus on the tests it becomes obvious that AMD is able to keep their turbo bins running longer than Intel. For gaming, Intel takes the lead, albeit the 999 USD Cofre i9-10980XE is not a gaming processor, for that the 9900K shines. Overall the result while impressive feel a bit incomplete, and that is largely because AMD has not released their new Threadripper 3000 series just yet of course. Lab501 posted the results so all credits and kudos to them of course. Below a handful of benchmarks, they've posted.

Intel Core i9-10980XE Cascade Lake-X Benchmarks