Intel details its 10th-gen 10nm Ice Lake U- and Y-series processors

Intel has been teasing its 10th-generation Ice Lake processors for some time now. The formal announcement of the series of chips was made in May, but now the final details are coming in, at least for the U-series and the Y-series, both of which are for mobile devices.

U-series chips are what you'll find in most ultrabooks and convertibles. From the U-series, Intel is announcing six different SKUs, including one i3, three i5 models, and two i7 models. The amount of cores and threads hasn't changed, with a dual-core i3 and four cores in the i5 and i7 SKUs, and double the threads on each. The TDP is 15W on all but the top-end Core i7, which is 28W.

Other than the 10nm process, what's different is that most of these come with Iris Plus graphics now, rather than UHD Graphics. In fact, the naming scheme has changed. Gone is the 'U' on the end of the name; it's replaced by the letter 'G' and a number. The various SKUs have G1, G4, and G7, indicating different levels of graphics performance. All but G1 include Iris Plus.

Intel's Gen11 graphics promise a massive performance boost, offering double the performance of its predecessor. Intel says that it can get up to a teraflop of GPU engine compute. And while that will mean a big performance bump for the U-series, the Y-series will be improved even more.

The Y-series is seeing some big changes, also offering Iris Plus graphics. Moreover, for the first time, the Core i5 and i7 models will be quad-core instead of dual-core. The TDP is now 9W, whereas the last generation was 5W (it was 4.5W before that).

Also, as you'll see from the image above, the Y-series now has a Core i3 model. After Intel previously rebranded Core m5 and m7 to i5 and i7, respectively, it's now doing the same with the Core m3, and you won't have a 'Y' in the name to tell the difference.

Just as we got with the last generation, this one will support Wi-Fi 6; however, this is also the first generation to have Thunderbolt 3 integrated into the chipset. PCs will be able to have four full Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Intel also said that it will also be announcing more chips from its mobile 10th-generation lineup. This could be the Comet Lake that we've been hearing about.