Intel's new practice of offering F-Series processors without integrated graphics seems to have worked its way down to the Pentium series, at least according to a new Pentium G5600F listing at Kiakatek.com.
As denoted by the "F" suffix in the product name, Intel's new F-Series processors will come to market with a disabled integrated graphics unit, meaning you'll need to pair the chips with a discrete graphics card, but they confusingly come without an expected discount. That makes the only advantage of the F-Series is that you can actually purchase the chips at retail during Intel's ongoing 14nm processor shortage.
Aside from the 3.9GHz clock rate, the G5600F listing doesn't provide much detail about the new chip. We do know that F-series processors lack an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU. Additionally, these chips are expected to come packing the same 14nm process and Coffee Lake microarchitecture as their 9th generation counterparts.
They also feature the same core counts, TDPs and frequencies, so we can compare the purported specs to the existing Pentium G5600, which sports a dual-core Hyper-Threaded design, 4MB of L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4-2400 memory.
Intel Pentium Gold G5600 vs Pentium Gold G4500 Specs Comparison
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Pentium Gold G5600 | Pentium Gold G5400 |
| Socket | LGA 1151 | LGA 1151 |
| TDP | 54W | 54W |
| Architecture | Coffee Lake | Coffee Lake |
| Process | 14nm++ | 14nm++ |
| Cores / Threads | 2 / 4 | 2 / 4 |
| Frequency Base / Boost | 3.9 / - | 3.7 / - |
| Memory Speed | DDR4-2400 | DDR4-2400 |
| Memory Controller | Dual-Channel | Dual-Channel |
| Cache (L3) | 4MB | 4MB |
| Integrated Graphics | UHD Graphics 630 | UHD Graphics 610 |
| PCIe Lanes | x16 | x16 |
| Unlocked Multiplier | No | No |
| MSRP | $86 | $64 |
Intel's Pentium lineup is surprisingly agile for its low price point, so they often find their way into budget gaming rigs to push low-powered graphics cards. Of course, that's primarily because the integrated graphics on Intel's processors are underpowered for the majority of games.
The Pentium models have long been subject to higher-than-suggested pricing, which many opine is due to Intel's desire to avoid cannibalizing its pricier Core i3 series, but Intel's ongoing shortage of 14nm production capacity has pushed pricing even higher. And that's if you can even find the chips.
Intel hasn't officially announced the Pentium G5600F yet, so we aren't aware of an expected release date or pricing. Based on what we've seen with Intel's other F-Series processors, we expect that the new processors will come with the same recommended pricing as their GPU-equipped counterparts and that the Pentium series will receive multiple F-variants over the coming months.
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