Leaked slides seem to indicate that Intel is getting ready to launch its 10th Gen 'Comet Lake' desktop CPUs, and that the highest-end model will have up 10 cores. The purported information shows that Intel's next generation for the desktop will be yet another refresh of the 14nm Skylake architecture, as the company has not yet ramped up 10nm production to support multiple market segments. Eleven new models are detailed, though all information should be taken with a pinch of salt as it is not officially verified. The new processors could be launched as soon as CES 2020, which begins in the second week of January.
Of the 11 CPUs, three are listed as 125W parts while the rest have 65W TDPs. All models feature Hyper-Threading, which is a departure from Intel's previous strategy[1]. There is also mention of a new feature called "Intel Thermal Velocity Boost" for the highest-end models which appears to be similar to AMD's XFR feature[2], allowing either one or all cores to run at higher speeds for as long as thermal and power conditions allow.
There are two purported Core i9 parts, both with 10 cores and 20 threads, as well as two Core i7 models with 8 cores and 16 threads. Four Core i5 models follow, each with 6 cores and 12 threads, with three quad-core, 8-thread Core i3 models rounding out the list.
According to the allegedly leaked slides obtained by Informática Cero[3] and Videocardz.com[4], the top-end 125W 10-core Core i9-10900K will have a 3.7GHz base clock and 5.1GHz turbo boost speed, but that can potentially go up to 5.3GHz thanks to the new Thermal Velocity Boost feature. There is also a non-K Core i9-10900 SKU with the same feature but...