If their 4nm aren't doing well ( or at least on schedule ), pushing your 7nm capacity towards lower end lower margin $122 chip doesn't make any sense. Of course, that is not ruling out the possibility of Intel being completely irrational.

They might just sell CPU dies where some cores aren't working. Also these chips are important for business customers where lower end designs are important and they make the money by selling huge amounts.

Then they should do it with their 14nm capacity, not on 10nm / 7nm.

>They might just sell CPU dies where some cores aren't working.

These chips aren't disabled die. They are quad core SKUs and Design.

Just out of curiosity, how do you know the die is designed with four cores? I would be interested to know which chips have cores disabled and which don't.