Two new Intel processors will arrive on the market very soon according to Twitter user and known hardware leaker @momomo_us. There's no indication whether these two unreleased chips hail from the chipmaker's latest Alder Lake family or just another Comet Lake refresh. However, the specifications insinuate the former.
The last Pentium Gold or Celeron processor was from Intel's 10th Generation Comet Lake lineup. With Rocket Lake, the chipmaker didn't launch any Core i3 and below SKUs, but preferred to rewarm its Comet Lake chips with a small clock speed bumps. It would seem that Intel may finally give the entry-level processors a much needed renovation.
It seems that the Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G6900 are the direct replacements for the Pentium Gold 6400 and Celeron G5900, respectively. As such, these processor should retain the same core configurations as their predecessors. The Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G5900 will likely feature a dual-core setup with the first arriving with Hyper-Threading and the latter without.
Core i3 models and some Core i5 variants don't leverage Alder Lake's hybrid microarchitecture, meaning they only sport the Golden Cove (Performance) cores. The Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G5900 will follow suit.
Pentium Gold G7400, Celeron G6900 Specifications
| Processor | Cores / Threads | Base Clocks (GHz) | L3 Cache (MB) | TDP (W) | Part Number | RCP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pentium Gold G7400* | 2 / 4 | 3.7 | 6 | ? | BX80715G7400 | $98 |
| Pentium Gold G6400 | 2 / 4 | 4.0 | 4 | 58 | BX80701G6400 | $64 |
| Celeron G6900* | 2 / 2 | 3.4 | 4 | ? | BX80715G6900 | $72 |
| Celeron G5900 | 2 / 2 | 3.4 | 2 | 58 | BX80701G5900 | $42 |
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
The clock speeds and L3 cache imply that the Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G6900 shouldn't be a Comet Lake refresh. The Pentium Gold G7400 has a 300 MHz lower base clock than the existing Pentium Gold G6400, while the Celeron G6900 preserves the same 3.4 GHz base clock as the Celeron G5900. If the unannounced processors were a refresh, they should be sporting improve clock speeds.
Another aspect that doesn't add up is amount of L3 cache. The Pentium Gold G6400 and Celeron G5900 have a 4MB and 2MB L3 cache, respectively. The Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G6900, on the other hand, utilizes a different cache configuration. Assuming that the Canadian retailer's specifications are spot on, the Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G6900 are equipped with 6MB and 4MB of L3 cache, respectively, a considerable increase over the Comet Lake models.
According to the retailer listings, the part numbers for the Pentium Gold G7400 and Celeron G5900 start with "BX80715,", the same string that Intel utilizes for its other Alder Lake parts. The chipmaker uses "BX80708" for Rocket Lake and "BX80701" for Comet Lake.
Intel intelligently launch Alder Lake K-series processors first, while saving the less expensive SKUs for a later stage in time. The chipmaker has confirmed that the non-K chips should arrive early 2022, therefore, the Pentium Gold G6400 and Celeron G5900 are probably patch of the second batch.
