Intel’s Entire 10th Gen Comet Lake Desktop CPU Lineup Leaked + Intel 400-Series Platform & LGA 1200 Socket Detailed

[BiG StroOnZ]

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We know that Intel is readying its 6th installment of their 14nm mainstream desktop family known as Comet Lake which arrives next year. There has been much that we have talked about but today, we have exclusive information covering the entire 10th Generation desktop CPU family, ranging from each specific SKU to the platform itself. So let's start off with the details, the Intel 10th Generation desktop processor family will be known as Comet Lake. Comet Lake-S which is the official codename for the mainstream desktop family is based on a refined 14nm++ process node. 

 

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 2x1 (10 Gb/s) support
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST)
• Programmable (Open FW SDK) Quad-Core Audio DSP
• C10 & S0ix Support for Modern Standby

The Intel 10th Generation Comet Lake-S family would initially launch with 9 SKUs with more to come later. According to the Intel slide, the 10th Generation Comet Lake family would deliver an 18% performance improvement in multi-threaded compute workloads compared to 9th Generation processors and an 8% generational improvement over 9th Gen parts in general windows workloads.

 

The flagship variant of the 10th Generation Core family would be the Intel Core i9-10900 which would feature 10 cores and 20 threads. This chip would be clocked at 3.0 GHz base and 5.1 GHz boost clocks along with 20 MB of cache. The Xeon variant comes with a higher TDP of 80W but has a higher base frequency of 3.1 GHz while boost clocks stick to 5.1 GHz like the Core i9-10900. The entire lineup can be seen in the table below:

 

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Even the regular Core i7 part with 8 cores and 16 threads has a maximum frequency of 4.8 GHz at 65W TDP. This means that the 'K' series part would have a boost frequency of 5.0 GHz (single-core) which is pretty good if priced right. The 8 core and 16 thread parts could end up being priced around the $350 US range. As expected before, all 10th Generation Core SKUs would feature multi-threading support. The Core i9 lineup would get 10 cores and 20 threads, the Core i7 lineup would get 8 cores and 16 threads, the Core i5 lineup would get 6 cores and 12 threads while the Core i3 lineup would get 4 cores and 8 threads. The Pentium lineup would also get multi-threading support with 2 cores & 4 threads.

 

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This brings us to the next topic which is related to the 400-series platform and the new LGA socket. It is now confirmed that Intel is indeed moving to a new socket with their 400-series motherboards that will be introduced next year too. 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. Intel plans to have several chipsets deployed in the 400-series family. There would obviously be Z490 which will target the 'K' unlocked SKUs. 

 

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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.

 

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Source: https://wccftech.com/intel-10th-gen-comet-lake-desktop-cpu-family-400-series-platform-leak/

Source 2: https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-10000-series-desktop-cpus-and-chipsets-specifications-leak.html

Source 3: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-comet-lake-10th-gen-desktop-cpus-10-cores-new-lga1200-socket-z490-w480-q470-h410-chipset-14nm

 

Again, as with all leaks/rumors, to avoid disappointment - maintain a skeptical outlook until the information within can be confirmed by more sources. However, at least with this one, there seems to be a decent amount of slides present. While this doesn't eliminate it from being completely faultless, it at least gives more conviction to the source material. Funnily enough, the addition of all SKUs now having HT (except Celeron) is interesting to say the least. Being that Ryzen has been offering this since launch, with Intel's reluctance to follow suit. This is obviously a great move by Intel, and IMO, displays Intel being realistic about the current state of competition within the CPU space. I think seeing the pricing though will determine exactly how serious Intel actually is. 

 

Side Note: Slides shown behind Spoiler tags ("Reveal hidden contents"). Also, there are many more slides related to the 400-series chipset alone. Please follow the source link to check out all of those; as I felt uploading all of them here would be a bit too much with the amount of slides I have already uploaded.

[aisle9]

It's kind of funny to be alive right now. Back in 2013-2016, AMD's response to Intel's technical superiority was, "LOOK AT ALL TEH COREZ WE HAZ!!!!!". Jump to 2020, and Intel's still camping on a 14nm architecture...but look at all teh corez they haz!

 

Unless Intel slashes prices (lol) or pulls a rabbit out of their hat (that rabbit was pulled with Coffee Lake), the only thing that gives me interest in Comet Lake at all is the Iris graphics available on the mobile SKUs.

[TheSLSAMG]

15 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

It's kind of funny to be alive right now. Back in 2013-2016, AMD's response to Intel's technical superiority was, "LOOK AT ALL TEH COREZ WE HAZ!!!!!". Jump to 2020, and Intel's still camping on a 14nm architecture...but look at all teh corez they haz!

Honestly Intel doesn't even have that as an advantage since AMD's consumer platform goes up to 16-cores whereas Intel's goes up to 10.

 

Back when I built my first rig in 2013, I would've never thought AMD would have matured so much that I would actually consider them over Intel. Yet here I am, more than happy with my Ryzen 5 3600X. It's really fun to think about how the industry flipped relatively quickly.

[Arika]

1 hour ago, Genwyn said:

“14nm++”

 

Considering it's still going toe to toe with ryzen, node size doesn't actually matter as much as people thinks it does. Plus with all the issues they had with 10nm, it's better to fall back on reliability than releasing a product that wont hold up to demand 

[Kisai]

3 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Considering it's still going toe to toe with ryzen, node size doesn't actually matter as much as people thinks it does. Plus with all the issues they had with 10nm, it's better to fall back on reliability than releasing a product that wont hold up to demand 

 

But it does matter from a TDP envelope. If Intel can squeeze more out at 14nm, good, but that just means AMD can squeeze out more from 7nm as well. Personally I wouldn't buy anything still on the 14nm node unless I needed a like-for-like replacement.

[Arika]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

But it does matter from a TDP envelope. 

Which doesnt doesn't matter to a large chunk of people. people already use coolers well above what would be needed for their current CPU and PSUs with a huge excess of power

[MichaelWd]

Can anyone help me understand what would be driving the reported 8% increase in performance? Same size, same pcie, is it just due to more cores? Or a slightly higher clock?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Genwyn said:

“14nm++”

<snip>

That’s all you need to know.

Welcome to Skylake + mOaR cOaRs

its an en core

[RejZoR]

While AMD is going with MOAR CORES, Intel is yet again going with MOAR PINS. It's hilarious how AMD can pull all this performance goodness while using AM4 socket for 3 generations already and has plans for 2 more afaik. But AMD always has to stick stupid extra pins just so you absolutely need a new board for it yet again. It's like they intentionally want to piss even the last remaining users off with their socket bullshit.

[porina]

39 minutes ago, Tedny said:

20Mb of cashe don't looks that great

Basically same per core amount at 2MB/core. It's very much "more of the same" apart from offering a 10 core part instead of 8. AMD pretty much had no choice but to put in a ton of L3 cache with Zen 2 as to feed that many cores with their limited bandwidth IF/ram configuration would otherwise cripple it.

[Master Disaster]

3 hours ago, MichaelWd said:

Can anyone help me understand what would be driving the reported 8% increase in performance? Same size, same pcie, is it just due to more cores? Or a slightly higher clock?

Manufacturing process refinements also help. They've been on 14nm for so long they've got very good at manufacturing high quality wafers.

[Age of 9394]

2 year ago i7 have 4 cores and 8 threads, now i3 will have the same performance as i7 for $100?

 

[Deli]

15 minutes ago, Age of 9394 said:

2 year ago i7 have 4 cores and 8 threads, now i3 will have the same performance as i7 for $100?

 

You have to say thank you to AMD.

[realpetertdm]

So 2 more cores in the flagship high end CPUs, no PCI gen 4.

 

Meanwhile AMD's sticking in 16 cores and PCI gen 4 all into the same AM4 socket.

 

This is disappointing, to say the least. 

[MichaelWd]

1 hour ago, realpetertdm said:

So 2 more cores in the flagship high end CPUs, no PCI gen 4.

 

Meanwhile AMD's sticking in 16 cores and PCI gen 4 all into the same AM4 socket.

 

This is disappointing, to say the least. 

 

The socket is the thing that gets me. Who is realistically upgrading their entire motherboard, re-pasting the cooler, etc., for this?

[Unixsystem]

13 hours ago, RejZoR said:

 AMD can pull all this performance goodness while using AM4 socket for 3 generations already and has plans for 2 more afaik.

Unless they've put out an updated statement, the original promise was AM4 until 2020, meaning that we'll probably get a Zen 3 on AM4 and then it'll shift to AM5 (or whatever they call it) in time for DDR5 to hit mainstream in mid/late 2022. Depending on how slow DDR5 rolls out, I honestly wouldn't be that surprised if they put it off for an extra year and just did a Zen 3 refresh on AM4. 

15 hours ago, MichaelWd said:

Can anyone help me understand what would be driving the reported 8% increase in performance? Same size, same pcie, is it just due to more cores? Or a slightly higher clock?

I'm sure there are some minor architectural advantages compared to previous gens, but knowing Intel's marketing strategy as of late I wouldn't be surprised if the 8% is solely based on the 10 core's multithreaded performance.

Spoiler

Even though more cores are super unimportant, guys.

 

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Trust us.

 

 

[QXC]

This leak is pretty much the ideal situation for what Intel could do. Price cuts plus a 10 core part, but oops you need a new motherboard again.

The TDP numbers are interesting but ultimately irrelevant, and I think everyone would be surprised if there was a magic generational power efficiency improvement with the same arch on the same process. I don't even think Intel would be brash enough to just lower their TDP numbers when it's obvious that the processors aren't really any different.

But hey, maybe they'll drop the actual announcement around the time all of those red hot AMD chips drop later this month.

[dizmo]

How do you figure W480 is a more "feature rich" chipset? Looks more like the Workstation/server (hence the W) chipset to me...and since it lacks overclocking, it's actually less feature rich. I know Intel is the new whipping boy, saving AMD's backside right now, but I'm still interested to see how it performs. If it beats AMDs offerings, then it's still worth considering.

 

9 hours ago, Age of 9394 said:

2 year ago i7 have 4 cores and 8 threads, now i3 will have the same performance as i7 for $100?

Not too surprising. It's called advancement

7 hours ago, MichaelWd said:

The socket is the thing that gets me. Who is realistically upgrading their entire motherboard, re-pasting the cooler, etc., for this?

People that have an LGA1151 based PC probably aren't looking at upgrading anyway. So it's the people who have older systems, and would be upgrading it regardless, or those who are buying new systems. I don't know why people think the only market is people who just bought a PC

18 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

shit guys amd are winning quick let's release the i7 as an i3 without making any kind of technological advancement whatsoever


meanwhile in 2026
"intel announces i7-3800000000000000000000090k based on 14nm(+⁹⁹⁹) architecture, now with 360 cores and a socket the size of the motherboard"

The i7 hasn't had 4 cores for quite a while.

 

9 hours ago, realpetertdm said:

So 2 more cores in the flagship high end CPUs, no PCI gen 4.

 

Meanwhile AMD's sticking in 16 cores and PCI gen 4 all into the same AM4 socket.

 

This is disappointing, to say the least. 

The low end chips also got a pretty nice boost. HT on the i5 and i3.

16 cores is interesting, sure but how many people are actually buying that part? Not nearly as many as the middle of the product stack.

I don't think PCIe gen 4 really matters right now. They won't lose that many sales, and can simply add it in next year.

[Unixsystem]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

People that have an LGA1151 based PC probably aren't looking at upgrading anyway. So it's the people who have older systems, and would be upgrading it regardless, or those who are buying new systems. I don't know why people think the only market is people who just bought a PC

We all know that Nvidia and Intel only ever announce products for the sole purpose of screwing over the people that bought the previous generation. 

 

If they really cared, they would slow down all product development and generational advancement of technology just so that we didn't need to feel mildly upset when we only get 12-18 months with the biggest silicon penis. 

 

Spoiler

Silicone penises, on on the other hand, seem to retain their good feelings quite a bit longer. Or so I hear. 

 

[thorhammerz]

1 hour ago, Waffles13 said:

If they really cared, they would slow down all product development and generational advancement of technology just so that we didn't need to feel mildly upset when we only get 12-18 months with the biggest silicon penis. 

It's almost like people feel a desire to complain, about one thing or another .

[Founders]

2 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

It's almost like people feel a desire to complain, about one thing or another .

Not only that but the'll complain about a product before it even hits the market. 

[williamcll]

I wonder what the upper power consumption would be for the 10900s.

[Flying Sausages]

AMD Zen 4 is going to destroy Intel 10th gen career

[dizmo]

6 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

We all know that Nvidia and Intel only ever announce products for the sole purpose of screwing over the people that bought the previous generation. 

 

If they really cared, they would slow down all product development and generational advancement of technology just so that we didn't need to feel mildly upset when we only get 12-18 months with the biggest silicon penis. 

 

  Hide contents

Silicone penises, on on the other hand, seem to retain their good feelings quite a bit longer. Or so I hear. 

 

That is an absolutely horrible way to look at technology.

Yeah, let's slow down the advancement of the human race so that people don't feel bad about their purchases.

 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

That is an absolutely horrible way to look at technology.

Yeah, let's slow down the advancement of the human race so that people don't feel bad about their purchases.

 

 

I am pretty sure he was being sarcastic, but it is hard to tell with some of the comments this forum throws up regarding new products etc.  Poe's law I guess.