Intel 10th-Gen Comet Lake H: 5.3GHz Clock, Trailing in Cores
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Intel 10th-Gen Comet Lake H: 5.3GHz Clock, Trailing in Cores
Intel has launched a new series of laptop processors, the 10th generation Comet Lake H chips. These are 45-watt CPUs for gaming laptops and powerful content creation machines.
This follows an aggressive attack by his rival AMD. The company's new Ryzen 4000 laptop processors offer eight-core, sixteen-thread laptops as small as the new Zephyrus G14. It is impressive.
The headliner features are a new Core i7 with eight cores and a Monster Core i9 with turbo speeds of up to 5.3 GHz. Is this enough to slow the momentum of AMD?
Intel's H-series processors are among the most important chips in their product range. Whether it's a gaming laptop like a Razer Blade or a content creation device like the Dell XPS 15, it probably has one of those chips in its heart.
Intel expects over 100 designs to use Comet Lake H chips this year, including over 30 laptops less than 0.78 inches thick.
This is what the range of H series chips looks like this year:
Cores / threads Basic clock Turbo frequencies
Cache TDP Intel Core i9-10980HK 8/16 2.4 GHz 5.3 GHz 16 MB 45w Intel Core i7-10875H 8/16 2.3 GHz 5.1 GHz 16 MB 45w Intel Core i7-10850H 6/12 2.7 GHz 5.1 GHz 12 MB 45w Intel Core i7-10750H 6/12 2.6 GHz 5.0 GHz 12 MB 45w Intel Core i5-10400H 4/8 2.6 GHz 4.6 GHz 8 MB 45w Intel Core i5-10300H 4/8 2.6 GHz 4.5 GHz 8 MB 45w
The first eight-core Core i9 was released in 2019, and an eight-core Core i9 is again at the top of the stack. The main feature is the 5.3 GHz turbo frequency. This is a big leap over last year's Core i9, which was surpassed at 4.9 GHz. In terms of clock speed, it's even faster than the latest desktop parts 9900K and 9900KS.
Intel uses its TVB (Thermal Velocity Boost) 3.0 for short bursts of clocked frequencies. These speeds are not meant to be maintained, but are designed for fast, overloaded workloads such as photo editing or loading certain games. With TVB 2.0, the function was reserved for the Core i9 parts, but this year it was also expanded to include the Core i7 chips.
What about all-core turbo? Intel has downplayed its sustained all-core clock speeds in recent generations, and that hasn't changed in Comet Lake-H. An Intel representative mentioned that the Core i9 chip can be raised to 4.4 GHz when the cores are activated.
The previous mobile Core i9 was a popular choice with laptops such as the 16-inch MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 15, content creation machines that could use these additional cores. In the past, this was avoided by gaming laptops. This year, Intel has renamed its locked Core i9 to Core i7-10875H. It has the same clock speed, number of cores and cache size as last year's Core i9-9980H. Intel is aligning its chips to AMD's 8-core line of products, which include a Ryzen 9 4900H and a Ryzen 7 4800H.
It should be noted that while Intel emphasizes its high single-core boost speeds, the Ryzen chips offer higher base clocks. The Ryzen 9 4900H is 3.3 GHz and the Ryzen 7 4900H is 2.9 GHz.
The Intel product range with two Core i7 with six cores and two Core i5 with four cores is known further down in the stack. These processors get the same 8% increase in boost clocks and a small increase in base clocking. The respective Ryzen 5 chip from AMD has two additional cores, four additional threads and a higher base clock rate of 3.0 GHz.
Intel's briefing did not focus particularly on comparisons with AMD or even with Intel's 9th generation chips. Rather, the company focused on the performance benefits of a buyer who wants to upgrade their three-year-old laptop. Intel offers up to 54% better gaming performance, twice faster 4K video renderings and 44% better overall performance.
Why show these changes? Well, Intel believes that the people who are most likely to buy a gaming laptop in 2020 will upgrade at least a three-year-old PC. These numbers include the huge increase in graphics capabilities, for which Intel is not responsible.
Intel expects Comet Lake-H to achieve a double-digit percentage increase over last year's chips. It was not specific what types of workloads or games would bring this level of improvement.
Clock speeds are often limited by the thermal limitations and case design of each laptop, which means that many often fail to achieve the speeds specified by Intel. Intel mentioned that over 60% of the Core i9 models could reach at least the 5.0 GHz threshold this year.
Comet Lake-H is the successor to the 9th generation Coffee Lake-H chips that were delivered for laptops in 2019.
Intel no longer wants to mention which process node its chips use, and likes to call everything new “10. Generation". However, these Comet Lake H chips are based on the 14nm process that the company has used for many years.
Comet Lake made its debut in 2019 with its U-chips for small laptops. Confusingly, it came together with Intel's more noticeable 10 nm Ice Lake processors under the same brand name “10. Generation ”. With its second iteration (Tiger Lake), which is set for later this year, Intel continues to rely on 10 nm for devices with lower performance.
Intel's 10nm process is roughly equivalent to the 7nm chips AMD already uses. Smaller nodes mean more transistors, which should theoretically enable higher clock rates and higher efficiency.
Comet Lake continues to use 14 nm on laptops of the desktop and H series. Comet Lake desktop chips are currently said to comprise up to ten cores and twenty threads.
Intel will not transition to 10 nm on these platforms in 2020, but we expect to be launched under the code name Alder Lake in late 2021 or early 2022.
Four Thunderbolt 3 ports on Windows
The MacBook Pro has long used four Thunderbolt 3 ports. This function is now also available for Windows laptops, only with the Comet Lake H chips of the 10th generation from Intel.
Intel has supported two separate Thunderbolt controllers with two ports each. In the past, Windows laptops were limited to just two.
This isn't a change you'll likely see with gaming laptops, but you can expect content creation devices to follow Apple's example. The days of HDMI and USB-A are numbered.
Faster storage, Wi-Fi 6 and more
Intel's new Comet Lake H chips supports faster two-channel DDR4 memory at 2,933 MHz. Ryzen 4000 chips support even faster 3,200 MHz DDR4 RAM.
All 10th generation Comet Lake H processors offer built-in Wi-Fi 6 (Gig +) support, which Intel first introduced in 2019. Gig + promises 75% lower latency, three times faster downloads and twice the bandwidth. These benefits require a Wi-Fi 6 router to take full advantage of the new standard.
Intel also announced a new one-click overclocking interface called Intel Speed Optimizer. This is only available in the unlocked Core i9-10980HK.
Laptops with Comet Lake H processors of the 10th generation can now be pre-ordered. The first systems will be delivered on April 15th.
