Intel

Intel 10th Gen Core "Comet Lake" Lineup and Specs Revealed

Ahead of a possible reveal in the sidelines of CES, followed by an early-Q2 2020 product-launch, company slides detailing Intel's 10th generation Core desktop processors in the LGA1200 package, codenamed "Comet Lake-S," leaked to the web courtesy Informatica Cero. They confirm that HyperThreading will play a key role, with Intel enabling it across the lineup. The range-topping Core i9 series will be 10-core/20-thread along with 20 MB of L3 cache. The Core i7 series will be 8-core/16-thread, along with 16 MB L3 cache. The all-important Core i5 series will be 6-core/12-thread, equipped with 12 MB of L3 cache. The Core i3 series will have two sub-tiers: i3-103xx series with 4-core/8-thread and 8 MB L3 cache; and i3-101xx series 4-core/8-thread with 6 MB L3 cache.

The Core i7 and Core i9 "Comet Lake" chips will feature native support for dual-channel DDR4-2933, while the Core i5 and Core i3 will make do with native DDR4-2667 support (memory overclocking possible). Besides core/thread counts, and cache size increases, Intel will dial up clock speeds across the board by as much as 300 MHz per SKU (vs. their 9th gen predecessor), and introduce Turbo Boost Max 3.0, which has been exclusive to its HEDT processors. The introduction of Turbo Boost Max 3.0 could also bring about modern favored-core capability (benefiting Windows 10 1909 and later). The classic Turbo Boost is also available. There's also a mysterious new feature called "Thermal Velocity Boost," with its own set of clock-speeds depending on core/thread load. The chips could also feature Modern Standby C10 power-state support (first to the desktop platform). Intel is said to have also added several new core and memory overclocking features on the K-SKUs.