After many years of delay, Intel’s 10-nanometer processors arrives

Intel had warned us long ago about the 10th generation of processors codenamed “Ice lake” and is now ready to provide more details.

The company will launch 11 new processors ranging from a dual-core Core i3 to a four-core Core i7, all built on the 10-nanometer “Sunny Cove” architecture.

However the situation with model numbers is somewhat complicated because the company offers three different graphic options. If you thought it was difficult to distinguish Intel processors from one another, prepare for more complex names like the Core i7-1068G7.

The new processors come with Iris Plus teraflop performance graphics that can play some games at 1080p, a notable achievement especially for integrated graphics.

But only 10th-generation high-end processors will get the full graphics power of Iris. At the end of their label they will have a “G7” indicating they have 64 processing units.

The G4-labeled processors at the end have 48 processing units but retain the performance benefits of Iris. The lowest level is the G1 which have the usual integrated UHD graphics with 32 processing units.

As usual Intel shares the family of processors for the Y series laptops for super-thin and efficient models and the U series for ultra-laptops like the Dell XPS.

With this generation the Y-series processors will become more powerful with the first four-core model. Despite this line it is not expected to be able to play 1080p games with G7 Iris Plus graphics as well.

The 10th generation processors have turbo frequencies up to 4.1Ghz while the Core i7-8565U up to 4.6Ghz. Still the new chips are more powerful than the previous generation in other directions.

Intel says Sunny Cove architecture can deliver 18% more processes than before. So with the same frequency, the processor does more work. There were also improvements to the larger L1 and L2 cache.

The new processors bring more power for AI tasks, support for Thunderbolt 3 with up to 4 four ports, and next-generation Wi-Fi 6 connectivity. And of course the new 10-nanometer architecture means more efficiency. The first laptops with 10th generation processors are expected to come from Dell like the XPS 13 or Acer line with the Swift 5 line and many more.