As we move into 2020, there is a lot of talk about what Intel’s 2020 plans will be. Discussions about the expansion of Intel’s 10nm process node products, such as Ice Lake, beyond the mobile platform are often very heated, especially when we have limited information out of the company directly. For CES 2020, Intel has disclosed a couple of products for consumption: moving its 10th Gen mobile CPU line in to 45 W hardware, but we also had a couple of details about the post-Ice Lake hardware, called Tiger Lake.

With the 45 W mobile CPUs, it’s important to note that we are talking about Comet Lake here – Intel’s latest 14++ nm microarchitecture derived from the original Skylake but optimized from the latest Coffee Lake hardware. What this means for users is essentially a small improvement in frequency: Intel isn’t saying that much with what the new CPUs will bring at this point, but they are pointing out that they will be hitting 5.0 GHz with the new 45W Core i7 parts, and more than 5.0 GHz with the Core i9 hardware. I would assume this would mean that Intel is going to introduce both Turbo Boost Max 3.0 and its Velocity Boost technology to the mobile platform, which would target the best cores in the chip as well as use additional thermal headroom to get that extra frequency. Intel did not disclose if the turbo power increases with the new hardware.

We’ve seen a couple of designs already announce they will be using the 45W CPUs: Acer’s ConceptD Ezel and Ezel Pro laptops, along with Lenovo’s Y740S gaming laptop. Intel has stated that it expects its hardware to be in the market soon, with a full disclosure about the platform ‘very soon’, however it turns out that this won’t be in January. To be honest, if we’re so close to launching the product, I’m surprised as to why Intel isn’t disclosing.

The other part to Intel’s disclosure at CES is Tiger Lake. What is Tiger Lake, you may ask – it’s the next mobile platform beyond Ice Lake. Bearing in mind that Intel has been speaking about Ice Lake a while, and we now finally have top tier partners with 1065G7 designs, we’re still waiting for Intel’s mid-tier and lower-tier partners to come out with the platform. So we’re still a long way away from Tiger Lake, unless Intel wants to move beyond Ice Lake quickly.

However, regarding Tiger Lake specifically, Intel did confirm that it has Xe graphics. Whether this is related to the DG1 silicon that the company has spoken about recently isn’t clear, but Tiger Lake is monolithic and the Xe graphics inside will provide full INT8 support for AI workloads (which will be supported through Intel DL Boost). This would be built on the Xe-LP microarchitecture, which is targeting sub-25W power on the GPU. Tiger Lake also continues with AVX-512, but also upgrades the Gaussian Neural Accelerator for voice analysis to GNA 2.0. Intel will say more about Tiger Lake at its press event on Monday.

Intel also briefed us about its new Ghost Canyon NUC 9 kit, which uses Intel’s upgradeable element form factor as well as an 8-inch desktop GPU. The NUC is a full 5.0 liter size, which completely ignores the original NUC size that the platform was built on, however Intel is claiming 9th Gen 45W CPU support up to 5.0 GHz, with upgradeable units coming later. We have a separate article on this.

Carousel image is the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel, one of the new laptop designs using the new 10th Gen Core H-Series CPUs.

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  • sarafino - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link

    Hopefully the performance matches what they presented during the keynote, because if it delivers, the 4800H would be a really impressive jump in performance for Ryzen mobile.
  • Irata - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    Hmm...so Intel is announcing new 5 Ghz mobile CPU (on 14 nm) without too many specifics, just that they will be available "soon".

    "To be honest, if we’re so close to launching the product, I’m surprised as to why Intel isn’t disclosing."

    Could this perhaps be that this is something similar to Intel demoing their 28 core 5 Ghz CPU prior to Ryzen's announcement ?

    I would not be surprised if AMD were to announce their new Ryzen mobile CPU line up that also includes 8C/16T models and this is Intel's attempt at saying "no reason to get those, we'll have something available shortly that will be much faster."
  • Irata - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    *prior to Threadripper 2's presentation
  • Spunjji - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    You're pretty much on the money, there.

    The actual news is that they still can't manufacture any 45W CPUs using their latest core designs and the 10nm process node, so they're pushing Comet Lake - which is re-warmed Coffee Lake - which was bulked-up Kaby Lake - which was re-warmed Skylake... :D

    Their "45W" i9 CPUs are already nothing of the sort; this 5Ghz nonsense will just make the gulf between their promises and reality even wider. It's a shame because their mobile CPUs are still objectively decent, and they'd likely be received better if you didn't have to read a product review just to find out whether there's a meaningful performance difference between an i5, i7 or i9 version of the same notebook.
  • tamalero - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    I was wondering about this.
    How long will intel BS with "demos" that are nothing similar to the finished product?
  • Irata - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    As long as it works.
  • 69369369 - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    10th gen? More like 8.5 gen at best.
  • Spunjji - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    6.5th Gen, even! Although we could be generous and say 8.5th if they finally admit that there were 2 generations of Core before "1st Gen" Core. :D
  • ironargonaut - Monday, January 6, 2020 - link

    And yet..."AMD’s Picasso platform, featuring its Zen+ cores and coupled with a Vega iGPU, has been a tremendous improvement for AMD. But Intel’s Ice Lake platform runs circles around it."
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/15213/the-microsoft...
    So, what Gen would you say AMD is on then???
  • Lord of the Bored - Tuesday, January 7, 2020 - link

    AMD is Gen X.

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