Intel has announced that its long-awaited 10th gen of processors, aka Ice Lake, are now shipping, meaning the first systems should be ready in time for Christmas.
New Ice Lake processors will range from Core i3 to Core i7 models, will feature up to four cores and eight threads, and will turbo up to 4.1GHz while integrated Iris Plus graphics will boost up to 1.1GHz.
They follow a following a 10nm (namometre) manufacturing process, which is significant, because it means that Intel has finally perfected a process which allows them to make more transistor-dense components. Previous generations of processors, like the Whiskey Lake line announced last year, followed a 14nm process. Smaller components mean that more of them can be fit onto a chip, so in theory, Ice Lake CPUs ought to offer performance several orders of magnitude above older chips.
Related: Intel Ice Lake
Intel has famously struggled to move beyond the 14nm process with previous generations of processor updates, so the fact that they’re now, finally, ready to ship Ice Lake CPUs will be welcome news to long-suffering PC part pickers.
Intel says that Ice Lake chips will also allow for thinner and lighter laptops and 2-in-1s, like the mystery XPS Ice Lake model Dell’s President of the Client Solutions Sam Burd (pictured) flashed us a glimpse of back at CES 2019.
Ice Lake processors will use Intel’s DL Boost (deep learning boost) tech to accelerate low latency AI workloads. A discrete component, called the Gaussian Network Accelerator (GNA) is also built into the SoC, and this will apparently do all the lifting for low-power AI usages, freeing up the other processor cores, working, presumably, in a similar way to how Huawei’s Kirin chips have done on phones like the P30 Pro.
But with rivals AMD already using a 7nm process for their processors, including the 3rd gen Ryzen chips announced yesterday, it might be the case that Intel’s latest advances leave some would-be buyers cold.
Full specs, capabilities and indicative prices for Ice Lake CPUs have yet to be announced – Intel’s keynote speech at Computex 2019 is now underway.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
