Intel will finally be refreshing its mainstream desktop platform with the introduction of their 14nm “Comet Lake-S” processors in Q2-2020 or April 2020. With these processors you’ll see the introduction of the new LGA1200 socket and Intel 400-series chipsets, which will start with the Z490 Express. Leaked platform maps of these chipsets show them still using PCI-Express gen 3.0, which makes them look very similar to the current 300-series platform.
Intel will be adding a few new features though, which will start with networking. You’ll have support for 2.5 GbE wired LAN with an Intel i225-series PHY as well as 802.11ax WiFi 6 WLAN.
The next feature has to do with power states. Intel will introduce C10 and S0ix Modern Standby power-states. These will basically give your PC a tablet-like availability while using minimal power. Basically your web-connected apps and processor work at an extremely low-power (fanless) state. This is different from Smart Connect, which would wake your machine up from time to time to refresh these apps.
For the processors themselves HyperThreading is going to play a big role in making Intel’s processors competitive with AMD’s since the underlying microarchitecture has the same design as 2015’s “Skylake”. Below is a run-down of the Comet Lake-S lineup, which has the Core i9-10900K 10-core, 20-thread processors as the flagship.
Again both Z490 motherboards and these processors should be available in April 2020, which means we will likely spot a few at CES 2020 in a few weeks.
Via WCCFTech
