Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake-S Desktop CPUs Officially Launch on 27th May – Core i9-10900K, Core i7-10700K, Core i5-10600K To Lead The Pack

Intel's 10th Generation Comet Lake-S Desktop CPUs will be announced at the end of this month but our sources have pointed out to the exact date when you will be able to purchase the new CPUs off store shelves.

According to the information I have received, it looks like Intel's Comet Lake-S desktop processors will be hitting retail channels almost a month after their announcement on 30th April. The info is part of the latest NDA which has two segments, the press embargo, and the launch embargo. The press embargo finishes on 30th April at 13:00 GMT and we will see press releases for the 10th Gen lineup along with product announcements based on the 400-series chipsets, mainly Z490. But you will have to wait a whole month before getting hands on the new hardware.

The actual retail launch and product shipments would commence from 27th May at 13:00 GMT. It's the same time when you will also get to read reviews on the new launches. With the launch set for the end of May which essentially lands close to mid-2020, the question arises that how long of a shelve life would Comet Lake-S CPUs as recent rumors have suggested its immediate successor, the 11th Gen Rocket Lake-S family is expected to launch later this year. This would mean that we are looking at less than 6 months before which Comet Lake-S CPUs would be replaced by a lineup that is better than it.

The Intel Comet Lake-S or the 10th Generation Core Family is expected to be the last CPU lineup to reuse the 14nm Skylake architecture. The Skylake architecture has been with us since 2015 and Intel has yet to replace it for desktop consumers. The architecture has seen several optimizations and key refinements that have led to an increase from 4 cores and 8 threads to 10 cores and 20 threads. The same 14nm process has also been improved to the point that the flagship CPU speeds have seen a massive jump from 4.20 GHz boosts to 5.20 GHz boosts.

There are three SKUs in the unlocked lineup which is one less than what we were told. There's the flagship Core i9-10900K which is followed by the Core i7-10700K and the Core i5-10600K. The Core i3 variant is missing but it's such a crucial SKU that would be targetting a very competitive market and it would be a bad decision for Intel to not launch an unlocked quad-core part in the budget tier segment.

Intel Core i9-10900K - 10 Cores, Up To 5.3 GHz Single-Core, 4.9 GHz All-Core

The Intel Core i9-10900K will be the flagship part of the 10th Generation Desktop CPU family. Intel has a few tricks up their sleeves to offer even better performance than the Core i9-9900KS. The i9-10900K features 10 cores, 20 threads a total cache of 20 MB and a 125W TDP. The chip has a base frequency of 3.7 GHz and a boost frequency of 5.1 GHz. However, using Intel's Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, the chip can boost up to 5.2 GHz on a single-core and what's even better is the 4.9 GHz all-core boost. Some of the features of this particular chip include:

Here's the interesting part, the chip would also get Thermal Velocity Boost, similar to the current flagship parts. CPUs that support this algorithm, like the Core i9-10900K, would feature even faster boost frequencies of 5.3 GHz (single-core) and 4.9 GHz (all-core). However, as the name suggests, only top-tier cooling solutions would be able to allow full utilization of the Thermal Velocity Boost feature. So unless you rock a high-end AIO liquid cooler or a closed-loop setup, don't expect a sustained velocity boost but rather short bursts until the threshold is hit. It will be interesting to know the full extent of the features that this function has to offer and what kind of cooling would the Core i9-10900K requires in general. A few benchmarks of the Core i9-10900K versus the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X CPU can be found here.

Intel Core i7-10700K - 8 Cores, Up To 5.1 GHz Single-Core, 4.7 GHz All-Core

The Intel Core i7-10700K would be featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. The chip would house 16 MB of total cache and a TDP of 125W. The chip would feature a base clock of 3.8 GHz, a boost clock of 5.0 GHz (single-core) and 5.1 GHz (single-core) with Turbo Boost Max 3.0. The chip will be 100 MHz faster in single-core but slower across all-cores by 100 MHz than the Core i9-9900K which retails for over $500 US. Since this is an i7 part, expect pricing to fall around $350-$400 US.

Intel Core i5-10600K - 6 Cores, Up To 4.8 GHz Single-Core, 4.5 GHz All-Core

The Intel Core i7-10600K would be featuring 6 cores and 12 threads. The chip would house 12 MB of total cache and a TDP of 125W. The chip would feature a base clock of 4.1 GHz, a boost clock of 4.8 GHz (single-core) and 4.5 GHz (all-core). The chip would be faster than the 8th Gen flagship, the Core i7-8700K, featuring a higher base and boost clock across a single and all-cores. The Core i5 should be retailing in the $220-$270 US segment which is a decent price for a fast 6 core and multi-threaded chip.

The Comet Lake-S family would also move to a new socket known as LGA 1200. While the LGA 1200 socket has the same dimensions as the LGA 1151 socket (37.5mm x 37.5mm), the socket keying has shifted to the left side and Comet Lake is no longer electrically or mechanically compatible with Coffee Lake motherboards. Some details of the new LGA 1200 package and socket for Comet Lake:

Blueprints of the LGA 1200 socket (H5) have also been leaked by Momomo_Us, showing the design of the new socket itself and comparing it to the existing LGA 1151 socket (H4).

The pin and socket specific changes between the H5 LGA 1200 and the H4 LGA 1151 socket are detailed in the blueprints posted above. (Image Credits: Momomo_US)

The good thing is that your existing coolers would still be compatible with the LGA 1200 socket so that's one hardware change you shouldn't be worrying about. The Comet Lake-S family will retain support for DDR4-2666 memory UDIMM and support up to 32 GB capacity DIMMs per channel.

Intel plans to have several chipsets deployed in the 400-series family. There would obviously be Z490 which will target the 'K' unlocked SKUs I mentioned above, but aside from that, we are looking at the W480 (Entry Workstation), Q470 (Corporate with Intel vPro), and H410 (Value) chipsets. These would target more corporate and entry tier users. Also interesting to note is that H410 is not pin-compatible with W480 and Q470 chipsets, which reveals a very cut down design for the entry-level chip.

Following are some of the main platform features of the 10th Generation Comet Lake-S family:

In terms of chipset features, W480 would be the most feature-rich of the three chipsets that are mentioned here. Z490 would be the most appealing for the enthusiast and gaming audience, but let's take a look at the mainstream chipsets. The W480 chipset would offer a  total of 46 high-speed IO lanes and a total of 40 PCIe Gen 3.0 lanes. The CPUs would retain 16 lanes with the chipset offering up to 24 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

There would be support for up to 8 SATA III ports, 8 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports or 10 USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 14 USB 3.2 Gen ports, and Intel RST. Neither of the three chipsets would feature overclock support since that is restricted to the Z490 chipset but we will get more information on overclocking later on from Intel themselves. There's a massive list of Z490 motherboards that we can expect with the 10th Gen family, most of which have already been leaked at atwiki.jp:

Intel is definitely taking its time to release the 10th Gen Comet Lake-S desktop CPU family but things could get a little too hard for Intel as not only 3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs are getting insane deals over at major retail outlets, but AMD reaffirmed that Zen 3 based Ryzen 4000 desktop processors would be arriving by the end of 2020. This gives Intel just two-quarters worth of head-room before AMD comes in full guns blazing with its brand new architecture based CPU family, but it looks like Intel themselves want Comet Lake-S to be a generic refresh before Rocket Lake arrives later this year which is expected to be a much more impressive desktop outing from Intel in many years.