A couple of days ago, a juicy rumor emerged from the deep depths of the Chinese PTTWeb forums that Intel could possibly use the 10000-series branding for its upcoming Comet Lake products. A 3DMark leak from leaker TUM_APISAK seemingly lends credence to the rumor.
Comet Lake (CMT) has big shoes to fill because it's Intel's scheduled processor microarchitecture to replace the existing Coffee Lake and Whiskey Lake microarchitectures. If the recent Intel client roadmap is to be trusted, Comet Lake processors should arrive in the fourth quarter of the year. Comet Lake-U (CML-U) will feature configurations up to six cores while the higher-end Comet Lake-S (CML-S) and Comet Lake-H (CML-H) offerings could sport up to 10 cores. Unfortunately, Comet Lake continues to come out of Intel's 14nm furnace.
| Processor | Cores / Threads | Base Clock | Boost Clock (1 Core) | Boost Clock (All Cores) | TDP |
| Core i7-10710U | 6 / 12 | 1.1 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 3.8 GHz | 15W |
| Core i7-10510U | 4 / 8 | 1.8 GHz | 4.9 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 15W |
| Core i5-10210U | 4 / 8 | 1.6 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 3.9 GHz | 15W |
| Core i3-10110U | 2 / 4 | 2.1 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 15W |
*Specs in table not confirmed
With the frequency that Intel releases new processors, it was just a matter of time before the chipmaker would run out of four-digit model names for its processors. Intel has gotten to the point where it'll start using five-digit numbers for its products going forward. Apparently, the Comet Lake parts will be the first to be marketed under the new naming scheme, reportedly the 10000-series.
The Core 10000-series lineup, which was leaked by popular leaker KOMACHI_ENSAKA, belongs to the Comet Lake-U (CML-U) family, which means these are ultra-low power processors aimed at Ultrabooks, portable All-in-Ones (AiOs), and mini-PCs. The Core i3 models come with two cores while the Core i5 models flaunt four cores. The Core i7 models are available in four-and six-core configurations. Independent of the tier, Comet Lake-U processors arrive with Hyper-Threading (HT) support and a 15W TDP (thermal design power).
Comet Lake-U parts will be quite flexible in terms of memory support. Manufacturers can pair the chips with DDR4 memory modules up to 2,666MHz or with LPDDR3 sticks up to 2,133MHz. An update to Intel's Linux DRM kernel driver from last month indicates that Comet Lake will retain Skylake's Gen9 (Generation 9) graphics processor in both GT1 and GT2 configurations. This isn't a complete shocker considering we knew Comet Lake was just another refresh in Intel's plans all along.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.