Intel’s catalog will be enhanced this year with a new generation of core processors, the Comet Lake-S. It is accompanied by a new socket and new chipsets. The announcement of the Z490 motherboards is scheduled for next May.
New Range of Comet Lake-S Processors
It is obviously not certain that these solutions will be for sale. Intel could simply authorize the presentations. The high-end offering based on the Z490 chipset will have an improved VRM. Prices are likely to increase slightly (+3%) compared to the current Z390 motherboards.
It’s difficult to have a clear vision at the moment because if Comet Lake-S sets the spotlight on 14 nm, 10 nm chips are also expected towards the end of the year.
We know that the LGA 1200 socket will enable Comet Lake-S to operate. Due to its new format, it will not be able to support its existence. A change of the motherboard is therefore expected. However, we have good news as the current fans and water cooling AIO LGA 115X will normally be compatible.
Intel has no plans to change the layout of its mounting system around the socket (37.5mm x 37.5mm).
As for the Comet Lake S series, it will try to catch up with the AMD Ryzen 3000. It will offer a maximum of 10 physical cores combined with hyper-threading technology and up to 40 PCIe 3.0 lines (16 CPU + 24 PCH). In addition, support for wireless AC (Wi-Fi/BT CNVi) and Wi-Fi 6 (GigMD) is expected, as well as support for USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 and C10 and S0ix sleep modes.
The Core i9-10900K and Core i7-10700K will embody the “must have” with 10C/20T and 8C/16T architectures with 125 watt thermal envelopes. They have an L2 cache of 20 MB and 16 MB respectively. Their frequencies have yet to be confirmed. In the midrange, the Core i5-10600 offers 6C/12T at 3.3 GHz for 4.5 MHz in single-core operation.
This is how the comet lake range should be organized