Intel has dropped a ton of information on its upcoming 10nm Ice Lake processors and it is clear that this is going to be one of the biggest updates to its cadence so far – the first major change since 2015 by its own admission. Ice Lake, or more specifically Sunnycove, is going to be…
Intel has dropped a ton of information on its upcoming 10nm Ice Lake processors and it is clear that this is going to be one of the biggest updates to its cadence so far – the first major change since 2015 by its own admission. Ice Lake, or more specifically Sunnycove, is going to be a major upgrade path for consumers that have been on 14nm for a while now and is going to be the first “tick” on the 10nm process. There had been rumors about the company’s 10nm process getting delayed (or even cancelled) but all of those fears seem to have been mostly unfounded.
Intel’s Ice Lake processors are going to be the first 10nm commercial processors shipping in volume from the company and the second (hopefully successful) attempt at 10nm after Cannonlake. The details and technical information the company disclosed at Computex 2019 is very impressive to say the least as the major architecture achieves 18% IPC improvement over Skylake and almost 40% in terms of raw performance. This is going to be a major upgrade and could trigger a new cycle of upgrades for Intel’s customers if things go well for the company.
The biggest feature of Ice Lake is of course the fact that it is manufactured on the 10nm process but apart form that, the company is telling us about significantly upgraded capabilities to handle AI and machine learning-related workloads which could prove to be a selling point for certain customers. According to the slides, the Ice Lake processors achieve an almost 2.5x speed up in AI workloads as compared to Skylake thanks to DL Boost.
Thunderbolt 3 is integrated and 4K 60 with full HDR10 support is included. Gen 11 graphics mark the first serious iGPU inclusion in Intel chips, you can read our full coverage of that over here, and 1080p gaming (in the casual sense) is now viable.
