Intel heads to Computex 2019 to unveil the long-awaited 10th generation line of Core processors-- the 10nm-based "Ice Lake" range, with a first wave of products aimed at mobile computing applications.
“No one wants to compromise; people want it all-- battery life, performance, responsiveness, connectivity and slick form factors. Our job is to come together as an industry and deliver incredible and differentiated PCs, purpose built to what real people want," Chipzilla says. "10th Gen Intel Core processors-- our most integrated CPU-- and Project Athena are great examples of how our deep investments at a platform level will help fuel innovation across the industry."
The processor range offers models from Core i3 up to i7, with up to 4 cores and 8 threads, up to 4.1 max turbo frequency and up to 1.1GHz graphics frequency. Built using a 10nm process, the chips feature "Sunny Cove" architecture and a Gen11 graphics engine, as well as Deep Learning Boost (DL Boost) technology promising to bring AI technology to PC scale.
As mentioned earlier, the first 10th gen Core products are aimed at notbooks and hybrid devices, and promise an increase of up to 2.5X on AI performance, up to 1 teraflop of vector compute and a built-in Gaussian & Neural Accelerator (GNA) for low-power AI usage. Iris Plus graphics allow for faster graphics and 4K HDR media encoding, while Wifi 6 support allows for faster wireless connectivity.
The 10th gen Core launch comes as Intel further pushes Project Athena, the Chipzilla specification for the thin laptops of the future. The Intel Computex 2019 keynote had the company preview first designs from the likes of Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo, all with the promise of up to 16 hours of battery life, system wake from sleep in under 1 second and the addition of Thunderbolt 3, Wifi 6 and OpenVINO AI as platform-level requirements.
A final Intel announcement at Computex involves the 9th generation of Core-- a special edition 9th gen Core i9-9900KS processor fine-tuned to deliver 5GHz all-core turbo, a feat Intel describes as "making the world's best gaming desktop processor even better." It joins 14 new 9th Gen Core vPro processors for high-performance mobile and desktop PCs, 14 Xeon E processors for mobile and desktop workstations and the Core X series of processors for "premium creators."
The 10th gen Core processors are shipping now. The special edition Core i9-9900KS processor should be available by Q4 2019, just in time for the holiday season.
