Intel Client Desktop CPU Roadmap Leaked, Comet Lake and Glacier Falls Coming This Year

Tweakers.net reported last week on a leaked Intel roadmap purportedly from a Dell presentation, leading to somewhat panicked headlines that Intel would not have 10nm desktop processors until 2022.

There was one problem with that analysis, though: as we reported, the leaked roadmap covered Intel's commercial platforms, and not the client side of its business. Intel's commercial roadmap tends to trail the broader client desktop PC market (think enthusiast rigs) by roughly nine months.

Now the enterprising journalists at Tweakers.net have received Intel's client roadmap, but as with all leaks, we have to approach the information with caution. Intel's roadmaps are also known to change frequently.

This new roadmap, which extends out to 2020, doesn't have 10nm products listed, but we can clearly see the difference in the timelines that denotes a faster ramp for the Comet Lake processors for the broader market, implying that we shouldn't look too closely at the commercial roadmap (below) as an indicator that 10nm products won't arrive until 2022.

In either case, according to the new roadmap, we won't see 10nm arrive for the desktop until at least 2021. In the meantime, Comet Lake-S will land on the desktop in the fourth quarter of this year, bringing the mainstream desktop up to 10 cores fabbed on Intel's 14nm process. Cascade Lake X will arrive in the third quarter of 2019, again fabbed on the 14nm process, with up to 18 cores for the X299 chipset. This is effectively a refresh of the Skylake-X refresh for the high-end desktop.

On the server side, the roadmap has a Cascade Lake refresh listed for the first quarter of 2020, but that doesn't align with Intel's stated roadmap that has Cooper Lake on 14nm arriving in 2019 and Ice Lake following in 2020. That could mean that either Intel's plans have changed, or the roadmap is dated. 

Regardless of the roadmap, one thing is clear: AMD's 7nm processors are going to beat Intel's 10nm chips to market by a significant amount of time, setting the stage for what could be a massive upset on the desktop. We're sure to learn more about the arrival of those chips at Computex next month.