DARE WE MENTION DESKTOPS?
Intel’s 10th-gen CPUs are here. But wait—what about the desktop? For now, there are three different families of 10th-gen chips and none are mainstream desktop processors. So, what gives?
According to the narrative that has emerged over the last year or so, yup, the problem is 10nm. Rumors suggest that Intel is still having problems clocking the new process up, and also with yields. The first issue seems to be confirmed by the low clock speeds and relatively unimpressive TDPs of the first 10nm Ice Lake mobile chips.
By way of example, the quickest quad-core lowpower Ice Lake CPU tops out at 4.1GHz, while the fastest of the new 14nm
Comet family, also part of 10th-gen, hits 4.9GHz. In the ultra-low power area, Intel rates Ice Lake at 9W to Comet Lake’s 7W. In some regards, those comparisons may be misleading. It’s true that Ice Lake’s Sunny Cove CPU cores bring more performance per clock, but the overall picture doesn’t seem to be of a production process in rude health and delivering the typical benefits of a new node.
In a desktop context, of course, it’s the clock speeds that are most worrisome. If the 10nm node really is the better part of a whole gigahertz behind 14nm in that regard, the 18 percent bump in per clock performance that comes with those Sunny Cove cores will be neutralized by the lower frequencies.
What with the well documented overall delay to 10nm – around three years – it’s not surprising that rumors based on supposedly leaked roadmaps and suggesting Intel may skip 10nm for the desktop and go straight to 7nm have emerged. However, Intel has explicitly debunked such stories. A recent official statement from Intel said, “We continue to make great progress on 10nm, and our current roadmap of 10nm products includes desktop.” Of course, “current roadmap” isn’t quite the same as “definitely being launched.” We’ll believe 10nm mainstream desktop chips when we see them.