Today, Intel is announcing its new 10th-generation desktop CPUs, and there are some notable improvements. The processors are from the Comet Lake S family, meaning that they"re built on the same 14nm process that we"ve seen in previous generations. So instead of going for efficiency, Intel is going all-in on power.
At the top end of the lineup is the Core i9-10900K and Core i9-10900KF, the "K" indicating that it"s unlocked and the "F" indicating that there are no integrated graphics. They have 10 cores for the first time, with 20 threads, and with Intel"s Thermal Velocity Boost, they can get up to a 5.3GHz clock speed. Intel"s Boost Max Technology 3.0 is also new, and that brings them to 5.2GHz.
Another thing that"s new is that while the regular CPUs are still 65W, the unlocked SKUs actually have a 125W TDP now, whereas the previous generation was 95W. While the Core i9 was bumped up from eight to 10 cores, the Core i7 still has eight; however, Hyperthreading has returned to the Core i7 lineup.
What"s even more interesting though is that Hyperthreading is coming to the entire lineup. This is new for the Core i3 and Core i5 lineups, and it should provide a solid boost for multithreading tasks.
Pentium Gold and Celeron are getting refreshes as well. This is for the sub-$100 price tier, and they"re still dual-core with the Pentium Gold offering hyperthreading.
Finally, there"s the T-series, which is the 35W lineup for smaller PCs. They have the same amount of cores, but they"re all toned down a bit.
Other things that are new for the 10th-generation desktop lineup include DDR4-2933 memory support, 2.5G Intel Ethernet Connection I225 support, and integrated Wi-Fi 6 AX201 support. Intel says that compared to the previous generation, Comet Lake S offers 18% faster 4K video editing, up to 10% more fps on PUBG, up to 13% more fps on Monster Hunter, and up to 33% more fps on Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.