The final specifications & prices of Intel’s upcoming 10th Generation Comet Lake-S Desktop CPU family have leaked out by Videocardz. The information confirms the details that we already knew but the most important thing covered in this leak is the prices that show that Intel has definitely given its Core lineup a major overhaul in terms of price/positioning to tackle AMD’s Ryzen 3000 processors.
Intel’s 10th Generation Desktop CPU Family Specifications & Prices Leak Out – Core i9-10900K With 10 Cores For $488 US, i7-10700K With 8 Cores For $374 US
Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake-S Desktop CPUs and the accompanying Z490 platform are expected to be unveiled on 30th April and will be introduced on retail shelves on the 20th of May.
Update: HD-Tecnologia has also leaked the latest slides and shown us the pictures of Intel’s latest box packaging for its 10th Generation Desktop CPUs. While the dodecahedron packaging for 9th Gen Core i9 desktop CPUs looked great, I think the more simplistic box-shaped package with a nice mirror cut design looks even better.
The Intel Comet Lake-S or the 10th Generation Core Family is expected to be the last CPU lineup to reuse the 14nm Skylake architecture. The Skylake architecture has been with us since 2015 and Intel has yet to replace it for desktop consumers. The architecture has seen several optimizations and key refinements that have led to an increase from 4 cores and 8 threads to 10 cores and 20 threads. The same 14nm process has also been improved to the point that the flagship CPU speeds have seen a massive jump from 4.20 GHz boosts to 5.30 GHz boosts.
There are three SKUs in the unlocked lineup which is one less than what we were told. There’s the flagship Core i9-10900K which is followed by the Core i7-10700K and the Core i5-10600K. The Core i3 variant is missing but it’s such a crucial SKU that would be targetting a very competitive market and it would be a bad decision for Intel to not launch an unlocked quad-core part in the budget tier segment.
Intel Core i9-10900K – 10 Cores, Up To 5.3 GHz Single-Core, 4.9 GHz All-Core at $488 US
The Intel Core i9-10900K will be the flagship part of the 10th Generation Desktop CPU family. Intel has a few tricks up their sleeves to offer even better performance than the Core i9-9900KS. The i9-10900K features 10 cores, 20 threads a total cache of 20 MB and a 125W TDP. The chip has a base frequency of 3.7 GHz and a boost frequency of 5.1 GHz. However, using Intel’s Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, the chip can boost up to 5.2 GHz on a single-core and what’s even better is the 4.9 GHz all-core boost. Some of the features of this particular chip include:
Up to 4.8 GHz All-Core Turbo
Up to 5.3 / 4.0 GHz Thermal Velocity Boost Singe / All-core Turbo
Up to 5.2 GHz Intel Turbo Boost Max 3.0
Up to 10C and 20T
Up to DDR4-2933 MHz dual-channel
Enhanced Core & Memory Overclocking
Active Core Group Tuning
Here’s the interesting part, the chip would also get Thermal Velocity Boost, similar to the current flagship parts. CPUs that support this algorithm, like the Core i9-10900K, would feature even faster boost frequencies of 5.3 GHz (single-core) and 4.9 GHz (all-core). However, as the name suggests, only top-tier cooling solutions would be able to allow full utilization of the Thermal Velocity Boost feature. So unless you rock a high-end AIO liquid cooler or a closed-loop setup, don’t expect a sustained velocity boost but rather short bursts until the threshold is hit. It will be interesting to know the full extent of the features that this function has to offer and what kind of cooling would the Core i9-10900K requires in general. A few benchmarks of the Core i9-10900K versus the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X CPU can be found here.
Intel Core i7-10700K – 8 Cores, Up To 5.1 GHz Single-Core, 4.7 GHz All-Core at $374 US
The Intel Core i7-10700K would be featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. The chip would house 16 MB of total cache and a TDP of 125W. The chip would feature a base clock of 3.8 GHz, a boost clock of 5.0 GHz (single-core), and 5.1 GHz (single-core) with Turbo Boost Max 3.0. The chip will be 100 MHz faster in single-core but slower across all-cores by 100 MHz than the Core i9-9900K which retails for over $500 US. Since this is an i7 part, expect pricing to fall around $350-$400 US.
Intel Core i5-10600K – 6 Cores, Up To 4.8 GHz Single-Core, 4.5 GHz All-Core at $262 US
The Intel Core i7-10600K would be featuring 6 cores and 12 threads. The chip would house 12 MB of total cache and a TDP of 125W. The chip would feature a base clock of 4.1 GHz, a boost clock of 4.8 GHz (single-core), and 4.5 GHz (all-core). The chip would be faster than the 8th Gen flagship, the Core i7-8700K, featuring a higher base and boost clock across a single and all-cores. The Core i5 should be retailing in the $220-$270 US segment which is a decent price for a fast 6 core and multi-threaded chip.
Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake-S 65W Desktop CPU Family
The rest of the lineup is made up of the 65W SKUs which come in Core i9, Core i7, Core i5, and Core i3 flavors. Having a 65W Core i9-10900 with 10 cores and 20 threads which still boosts up to 4.5GHz across all cores and 4.6 GHz if you include the Thermal Velocity boost is pretty good plus 5.2 GHz on a single-core doesn’t sound that bad at all, considering this is a 65W chip (at its base frequency).
The Intel Core i3 lineup is also worth pointing out as it is made up of 3 SKUs which seem to be part of the initial launch family. The Core i3-10320 would be leading with 4 cores, 8 threads at 65W. 8MB of cache, clocks of up to 4.6 GHz with a single-core, and 4.4 GHz on all-cores sound decent enough for what is supposed to be a budget chip retailing under $150US. The full list of SKUs along with their specs can be seen in the table below.
400-Series Platform and LGA 1200 Socket Support
The Comet Lake-S family would also move to a new socket known as LGA 1200. While the LGA 1200 socket has the same dimensions as the LGA 1151 socket (37.5mm x 37.5mm), the socket keying has shifted to the left side and Comet Lake is no longer electrically or mechanically compatible with Coffee Lake motherboards. Some details of the new LGA 1200 package and socket for Comet Lake:
Comet Lake will transition to a higher pin-count package
Comet Lake LGA will not have backward compatibility with legacy platforms
No changes to ILM dimensions or thermal solution retention
Comet Lake LGA improves power delivery and support for future incremental I/O features
Pin 1 orientation remains the same, but socket keying has shifted left
The good thing is that your existing coolers would still be compatible with the LGA 1200 socket so that’s one hardware change you shouldn’t be worrying about. The Comet Lake-S family will retain support for DDR4-2666 memory UDIMM and support up to 32 GB capacity DIMMs per channel.
Intel plans to have several chipsets deployed in the 400-series family. There would obviously be Z490 which will target the ‘K’ unlocked SKUs I mentioned above, but aside from that, we are looking at the W480 (Entry Workstation), Q470 (Corporate with Intel vPro), and H410 (Value) chipsets. These would target more corporate and entry tier users. Also interesting to note is that H410 is not pin-compatible with W480 and Q470 chipsets, which reveals a very cut down design for the entry-level chip.
Following are some of the main platform features of the 10th Generation Comet Lake-S family:
Up To 10 processor cores for enhanced performance
Up To 30 PCH-H High-Speed I/O lanes for port flexibility
Up To 40 PCIe 3.0 Lanes (16 CPU, up to 24 PCH)
Media & Display features for premium 4K content support
Integrated + Discrete Intel Wireless-AC (Wi-Fi/BT CNVi) Support
Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) Support
Enhanced Core and memory overclock
Integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gb/s) support
Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST)
Programmable (Open FW SDK) Quad-Core Audio DSP
C10 & S0ix Support for Modern Standby
While there would be a range of new overclocking features, Intel has also revealed that they will be thinning out the die of 10th Gen Desktop CPUs, offering more IHS space for the CPU to make use of to dissipate heat. Intel is calling it the Thin Die STIM design and is stated to improve the overall CPU thermal performance.
In terms of chipset features, W480 would be the most feature-rich of the three chipsets that are mentioned here. Z490 would be the most appealing for the enthusiast and gaming audience, but let’s take a look at the mainstream chipsets. The W480 chipset would offer a total of 46 high-speed IO lanes and a total of 40 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes. The CPUs would retain 16 lanes with the chipset offering up to 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes.
There would be support for up to 8 SATA III ports, 8 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports or 10 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 14 USB 3.2 Gen ports, and Intel RST. Neither of the three chipsets would feature overclock support since that is restricted to the Z490 chipset but we will get more information on overclocking later on from Intel themselves.
Intel has definitely adjusted the prices of various processors in its lineup. The Core i9-10900K with 10 cores actually features a lower price point than the $500 US+ Core i9-9900KS while being lower in price which is a great thing for consumers who were waiting to buy one. The rest of the prices are also great and the only thing that needs to be seen now is how they fare against AMD’s Ryzen 3000 in actual benchmark tests. We will know what kind of value proposition the Intel 10th Gen Core lineup holds against the AMD Zen 2 based family on the 20th of May.