http://www.fudzilla.com/news/process...to-pc-builders

Chipzilla's CEO Brian Krzanich has claimed that Kaby Lake CPUs have been finalised and shipping to PC builders for use in complete systems.

These will be based on the same 14nm process as Skylake and its predecessor, Broadwell. Intel won?t make the move down to 10nm until the 8th-gen Cannonlake CPUs which are due to launch in 2017. The original plan was to switch to 10nm back in 2015 but, because of manufacturing problems, it will stick with 14nm for Kaby Lake.

The timing is not much of a surprise, We were expecting Kaby Lake by the end of the year in time to go head to head with AMD's Zen ? if that shows up on time. AMD's president Lisa Su has insisted that there will be a small volume desktop launch in 2016 before mass volume in early 2017.

"We have been very focused on the server launch for first half of 2017. Desktop should launch before that. In terms of true volume ability, I believe it will be in the first quarter of 2017. We may ship some limited volume towards the end of the fourth quarter, based on how bring up goes and the customer readiness".

However if that was the case we would expect to be seeing the same level of enthusiasm from AMD that Intel is giving its Kaby Lake. AMD is in a tricky position. Many in the industry expect Zen to be late, even while AMD insists it isn't. Chipzilla, on the other hand, is expected to deliver on time and is making a bit thing about it. If the company has shipped to OEMs already then it may even beat Zen into the shops, putting AMD on the backfoot even before it begins.