Following Intel can be a pain, looking at you, Cannon Lake, but Comet Lake has kind of taken things to another level.
Intel announced its 10th-generation Comet Lake processors for laptops in August 2019, serving as companions to its Ice Lake processors that will appear in laptops around the same time.
The major difference between these two platforms is the manufacturing process. While Ice Lake is the first part of Intel's future-gazing Project Athena, which aims to take laptops in the future, Comet Lake instead is another iteration of the 14nm Skylake architecture - yet another optimization.
However, we have seen rumors that Intel is planning to launch Comet Lake-S, which would take the place of 10th-generation Desktop chips, but we have no idea when Intel plans to do that.
So, we're going to dive into everything Comet Lake, as well as discuss any rumors about future desktop parts. Make sure you keep this page bookmarked, and we'll update it with any new information that comes our way.
Cut to the chase
What is it? Intel’s 10th-generation mobile platform
When is it out? Mobile chips are out now
What will it cost? Depends on the laptop
Intel Comet Lake release date
Intel pushed out its 10th-generation Comet Lake processors for laptops back in August, with the actual laptops filtering out over the following months. However, we still don't know when we'll actually see Comet Lake-S desktop chips.
We have seen some leaked product roadmaps that suggest that Intel Comet Lake-S processors will come out in 2020, so right now that's `where our money is. With the Intel Core i9-9900KS hitting the streets in October, we really don't see Intel launching a new generation of mainstream desktop processors before
Intel Comet Lake price
When it comes to laptop processors, Intel U- and Y-series chips don't have a public-facing price. Instead, you can expect laptops with the Core i7-10710U to start around $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$1,500, where the Intel Core i3-10110U will be in all kinds of entry-level laptops. Moral of the story: Intel Comet Lake price will depend on the laptop.
And, obviously we don’t have official pricing information for Intel Comet Lake-S processors, but we can do a bit of speculation based on previous generations of desktop processors. Coffee Lake Refresh saw the prices go up a little bit from Coffee Lake, but the differences were pretty negligible – just $20 (£30, AU$135) from the Intel Core i7-8700K to the i7-9700K. Below, we went ahead and listed the pricing of Coffee Lake Refresh’s desktop offerings, but we could see prices go up or down (probably up) when Comet Lake is actually announced.
Intel Core i3-9100F – $122 (about £90, AU$170)
Intel Core i3-9100 – $122 (about £90, AU$170)
Intel Core i3-9300 – $143 (about £110, AU$199)
Intel Core i3-9320 – $154 (about £118, AU$215)
Intel Core i3-9350KF – $173 (£194, about AU$230)
Intel Core i3-9350K – $173 (about £130, AU$240)
Intel Core i5-9400F – $182 (£188, about AU$250)
Intel Core i5-9400 – $182 (£194, about AU$250)
Intel Core i5-9600 – $192 (about £150, AU$260)
Intel Core i7-9700 – $323 (about £250, AU$450)
Intel Core i7-9700K – $374 (£409, AU$659)
Intel Core i9-9900K – $488 (£519, AU$899)
Intel Comet Lake specs
Comet Lake is yet another iteration of Intel’s 14nm FinFet manufacturing process. If this is true, so you shouldn’t expect much improvement in the way of power efficiency, and thermals will probably start to ramp up. We haven't got a chance to test these processors in a laptop yet, but we expect the difference over 8th-generation Whiskey Lake chips to be pretty minor.
We've got all the specs of the Intel Comet Lake Mobile chips here:
Intel Core i7-10710U – 6-cores, 12-threads | 12MB Cache | 1.1GHz base / 4.7GHz boost
Intel Core i7-10510U – 4-cores, 8-threads | 8MB Cache | 1.8GHz base / 4.9GHz boost
Intel Core i5-10210U – 4-cores, 8-threads | 6MB Cache | 1.6GHz base / 4.2GHz boost
Intel Core i3-10110U – 2-cores, 4-threads | 4MB Cache | 2.1GHz base / 4.1GHz boost
Y-Series chips:
Intel Core i7-10510Y – 4-cores, 8-threads | 8MB Cache | 1.2GHz base / 4.5GHz boost
Intel Core i5-10310Y – 4-cores, 8-threads | 6MB Cache | 1.1GHz base / 4.1GHz boost
Intel Core i5-10210Y – 4-cores, 8-threads | 6MB Cache | 1.0GHz base / 4.0GHz boost
Intel Core i3-10110Y – 2-cores, 4-threads | 4MB Cache | 1.0GHz base / 4.0GHz boost
This may look very similar to Whiskey Lake, but with some higher clock speeds, and well, that's accurate. The biggest differences here are the inclusion of Wi-Fi 6 compatibility and Thunderbolt 3 on the die.
As far as desktop goes, we're far out from Intel Comet Lake-S seeing the light of day, we don’t know what it’ll actually be capable of. But, don’t worry, we have plenty of rumors to fuel some speculation.
One of the most common threads among Comet Lake rumors is the fact that we’re going to see up to 10-core 20-thread desktop chips. We’re going to go ahead and assume that if this is true, this 10-core 20-thread processor will be the follow up to the Intel Core i9-9900K, with a 10-core single threaded chip taking over the Core i7-9700K’s slot.
Beyond that, we'll just have to wait and see what 10th-generation desktop chips are going to look like, but with AMD pushing high-core count and high-performance chips like the Ryzen 9 3900X, we expect Intel to bring out the big guns.
Images Credit: TechRadar