Intel Tiger Lake Laptop Listings Suggest Imminent 10nm Launch, Start at $1,000

News
By Zhiye Liu
published

The roars are getting louder.

Acer Swift 5

Acer Swift 5 (Image credit: Acer)

Intel's 11th Generation Tiger Lake 10nm mobile processors look like they're almost ready to come out of the oven, according to product listings on Centralpoint (via IThome). The Dutch retailer recently added two fresh Tiger Lake-powered Acer Swift 5 laptops with an expected stock date of July 27.

Acer's new devices are listed with the Core i5-1135G7 and Core i7-1165G7, which are rumored to be quad-core, eight-thread parts. The exciting part about Tiger Lake is the combination of Willow Cove CPU cores and Gen12 Xe integrated graphics. Intel hopes this will be enough to compete with AMD's Ryzen 4000-series (Renoir) offerings.

The Core i7-1165G7's iGPU has already shown strong performance against AMD's Vega graphics in early, unconfirmed benchmarks posted on Time Spy. It remains to be seen whether Willow Cove can hang with Zen 2 though. On paper, it looks doubtful since Zen 2 raised the bar for mobile processors with configurations up to eight cores, and Tiger Lake appears to max out at four cores.

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Acer Swift 5 (SF514-55T-548J)
Acer Swift 5 (SF514-55T-548J)(Image credit: Centralpoint)

The Acer Swift 5 will seemingly come with a 14-inch, 1080p resolution touch panel. The product description also confirms the presence of Intel Wi-Fi 5 AX201 and Bluetooth 5 connectivity, as well as a fingerprint reader and Windows 10 Pro.

The Core i5-1135G7 model (SF514-55T-548J), which sports 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD, could retail for $1,045, while the Core i7-1165G7 variant (SF514-55T-77BX) with 16GB of memory and a 1TB SSD may carry a price tag in the range of $1,275. 

For comparison, the current Acer Swift 5 with a quad-core Core i7-1065G7 Ice Lake processor, 16GB of memory and 512GB SSD sells for $999.99. AMD-powered versions are more wallet-friendly, so Tiger Lake will have its work cut out for it. An Acer Swift 5 with the hexa-core Ryzen 5 4500U starts at just $519.99.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • nofanneeded
    An Acer Swift 5 with the hexa-core Ryzen 5 4500U starts at just $519.99.

    Actually it is an Acer Swift 3 not 5 ...
    Reply
  • Zizo007
    How is this supposed to compete with cheaper, better battery life and faster laptops from AMD?
    My brother just bought an Acer Swift 3 8 cores Ryzen 4700U for 650$, its for work and light gaming 720p-1080p. Acer claims 11.5h battery life.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Zizo007 said:
    How is this supposed to compete with cheaper, better battery life and faster laptops from AMD?
    My brother just bought an Acer Swift 3 8 cores Ryzen 4700U for 650$, its for work and light gaming 720p-1080p. Acer claims 11.5h battery life.

    No one is using a 14" thin and light as a render box. Those additional cores will rarely prove useful unless you run cinebench all day on your ultra portable. Leaks have indicated the Xe IGP is faster than AMD's current IGP and I fully expect Tiger Lake with it's improved 10nm process to have a distinct per core performance advantage over Ryzen 4000 which will make it faster in every day use. Also, Acer's website has the 4700U with a maximum of 11 hours, while the only 14" Intel i7 model is rated at 12 hours. So, don't know where you are getting battery life for the AMD model. Looks like a performance sweep for Intel, along with a higher price.
    Reply
  • Zizo007
    spongiemaster said:
    No one is using a 14" thin and light as a render box. Those additional cores will rarely prove useful unless you run cinebench all day on your ultra portable. Leaks have indicated the Xe IGP is faster than AMD's current IGP and I fully expect Tiger Lake with it's improved 10nm process to have a distinct per core performance advantage over Ryzen 4000 which will make it faster in every day use. Also, Acer's website has the 4700U with a maximum of 11 hours, while the only 14" Intel i7 model is rated at 12 hours. So, don't know where you are getting battery life for the AMD model. Looks like a performance sweep for Intel, along with a higher price.
    Why not render with it? Reviews show 58C max temp under stress test. Its not worth double the price, not even for the same price. My brother is an IT, he renders videos, use Virtual Machine a lot, multitask a lot and need those cores for heavy IT programs, Virtualization and big Excel files.
    Reply
  • PCWarrior
    Zizo007 said:
    How is this supposed to compete with cheaper, better battery life and faster laptops from AMD?
    My brother just bought an Acer Swift 3 8 cores Ryzen 4700U for 650$, its for work and light gaming 720p-1080p. Acer claims 11.5h battery life.
    Well there is a lot to unpack here. First the better battery life and faster claim is merely your assertion, your speculation. You can’t possibly know either the performance or battery life of an unreleased Intel processor that has yet to be reviewed in order to make a comparison. Heck even the AMD cpu that has not been reviewed either. What you know is simply the results of a few random leaked benchmarks in who knows how early Tiger lake engineering sample. But even going from these few so far leaks we see that the Tiger lake cpu beats the 4700U in per core performance, it ties with it pure multithreaded workloads and beats it thoroughly in igpu performance.

    I also need to say here that the hexacore 4500U is not a 6c/12t cpu but a 6c/6t cpu so it is more comparable to a 4c/8t cpu of the same architecture. Similarly the octacore 4700U is not an 8-core/16-thread cpu but an 8-core/8-thread cpu so it is equivalent to a 6-core/12-thread cpu of the same architecture. Also we can be sure that the 11th gen 4c/8t Intel 15W flagship will be faster than any 10th gen 15W cpus including the 6c/12t Comet lake variant (the 10710U). So core count comparisons are not quite relevant. You have to wait for reviews.

    As for battery life this cpu is manufactured on Intel 10nm+(+) process and it will be the first product to be released on that process so we cannot make any estimates regarding efficiency. This should be more efficient than last gen’s U series cpus though which already had an excellent battery life already. Also bear in mind here that when Acer now makes claims about battery life with Intel cpus they have to comply with project Athena standards in order to get the badge. For AMD cpus on the other hand they continue the same false advertising shenanigans OEM have always used. So 11.5 hours … yeah right…

    Last but not least. The price of the cpu in a laptop is only a fraction of the cost. Even if the Intel cpu costs 100 dollars more that won’t make a laptop go from 650-700 dollars to 1000 dollars. It is priced higher because it is also paired with a better screen, more i/o (e.g. thunderbolt, etc), more RAM (16GB vs 8GB), larger capacity storage drive (512GB vs 256GB), it is more portable, it has smaller weight, etc. Try comparing the exact same configuration, etc with only difference being the cpu and the price difference will be much smaller and typically more than justified by the performance difference alone.
    Reply
  • Zizo007
    PCWarrior said:
    Well there is a lot to unpack here. First the better battery life and faster claim is merely your assertion, your speculation. You can’t possibly know either the performance or battery life of an unreleased Intel processor that has yet to be reviewed in order to make a comparison. Heck even the AMD cpu that has not been reviewed either. What you know is simply the results of a few random leaked benchmarks in who knows how early Tiger lake engineering sample. But even going from these few so far leaks we see that the Tiger lake cpu beats the 4700U in per core performance, it ties with it pure multithreaded workloads and beats it thoroughly in igpu performance.

    I also need to say here that the hexacore 4500U is not a 6c/12 cpu but a 6c/6c cpu so it is more comparable to a 4c/8t cpu of the same architecture. Similarly the octacore 4700U is not an 8-core/16-thread cpu but an 8-core/8-thread cpu so it is equivalent to a 6-core/12-thread cpu of the same architecture. Also we can be sure that the 11th gen 4c/8t Intel 15W flagship will be faster than any 10th gen 15W cpus including the 6c/12t Comet lake variant (the 10710U). So core count comparisons are not quite relevant. You have to wait for reviews.

    As for battery life this cpu is manufactured on Intel 10nm+(+) process and it will be the first product to be released on that process so we cannot make any estimates regarding efficiency. This should be more efficient than last gen’s U series cpus though which already had an excellent battery life already. Also bear in mind here that when Acer now makes claims about battery life with Intel cpus they have to comply with project Athena standards in order to get the badge. For AMD cpus on the other hand they continue the same false advertising shenanigans OEM have always used. So 11.5 hours … yeah right…

    Last but not least. The price of the cpu in a laptop is only a fraction of the cost. Even if the Intel cpu costs 100 dollars more that won’t make a laptop go from 650-700 dollars to 1000 dollars. It is priced higher because it is also paired with a better screen, more i/o (e.g. thunderbolt, etc), more RAM (16GB vs 8GB), larger capacity storage drive (512GB vs 256GB), it is more portable, it has smaller weight, etc. Try comparing the exact same configuration, etc with only difference being the cpu and the price difference will be much smaller and typically more than justified by the performance difference alone.
    Reviews of the laptop show 10-11h of battery life mixed usage, just look it up on Youtube. As for performance, true, we need to wait. The 4700U maxed at 58C in stress tests which is impressive. I don't expect Intel beating AMD even with 10nm unless they improve CPU architecture which they didn't. I won't pay double the price for the same performance, thank you.
    Reply
  • Zizo007
    PCWarrior said:
    Well there is a lot to unpack here. First the better battery life and faster claim is merely your assertion, your speculation. You can’t possibly know either the performance or battery life of an unreleased Intel processor that has yet to be reviewed in order to make a comparison. Heck even the AMD cpu that has not been reviewed either. What you know is simply the results of a few random leaked benchmarks in who knows how early Tiger lake engineering sample. But even going from these few so far leaks we see that the Tiger lake cpu beats the 4700U in per core performance, it ties with it pure multithreaded workloads and beats it thoroughly in igpu performance.

    I also need to say here that the hexacore 4500U is not a 6c/12t cpu but a 6c/6t cpu so it is more comparable to a 4c/8t cpu of the same architecture. Similarly the octacore 4700U is not an 8-core/16-thread cpu but an 8-core/8-thread cpu so it is equivalent to a 6-core/12-thread cpu of the same architecture. Also we can be sure that the 11th gen 4c/8t Intel 15W flagship will be faster than any 10th gen 15W cpus including the 6c/12t Comet lake variant (the 10710U). So core count comparisons are not quite relevant. You have to wait for reviews.

    As for battery life this cpu is manufactured on Intel 10nm+(+) process and it will be the first product to be released on that process so we cannot make any estimates regarding efficiency. This should be more efficient than last gen’s U series cpus though which already had an excellent battery life already. Also bear in mind here that when Acer now makes claims about battery life with Intel cpus they have to comply with project Athena standards in order to get the badge. For AMD cpus on the other hand they continue the same false advertising shenanigans OEM have always used. So 11.5 hours … yeah right…

    Last but not least. The price of the cpu in a laptop is only a fraction of the cost. Even if the Intel cpu costs 100 dollars more that won’t make a laptop go from 650-700 dollars to 1000 dollars. It is priced higher because it is also paired with a better screen, more i/o (e.g. thunderbolt, etc), more RAM (16GB vs 8GB), larger capacity storage drive (512GB vs 256GB), it is more portable, it has smaller weight, etc. Try comparing the exact same configuration, etc with only difference being the cpu and the price difference will be much smaller and typically more than justified by the performance difference alone.
    My 650$ Swift 3 is 512Gb NVMe 8Gb RAM which is enough, I don't know if the Intel is 16Gb. As for physical specs it depends on the brand and model, Swift 3 AMD beats Swift 3 Intel by a good amount yet less expensive. Same screen, same speakers, etc

    Edit: Here's the review comparing both, the Swift 3 AMD has WiFi 6

    650$ https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Octa-Core-Processor-Fingerprint-SF314-42-R9YN/dp/B086KKKT15/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=swift+3+4700u&qid=1592779501&sprefix=swift+3&sr=8-8
    MHsxYOwLrSUView: https://youtu.be/MHsxYOwLrSU
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Zizo007 said:
    My 650$ Swift 3 is 512Gb NVMe 8Gb RAM which is enough, I don't know if the Intel is 16Gb.

    Another reason someone could choose the Intel system is because they know how to read a spec sheet and can see the AMD system you are trying to compare is inferior feature wise. How do you not know how much RAM the Intel system has when it is listed in the specs in the original article? Because you never read the specs, and just went right to the comment section to post AMD is better at everything. The Intel system has 16GB of RAM, a touch screen, Windows 10 Pro, and a fingerprint reader all of which the AMD systems doesn't have. We can assume the Intel system will also have thunderbolt 3 since all the Ice Lake variants have it.

    Why do you keep stating the 10-11 hour battery life like that is some sort of special feature? Most of the Intel systems have higher run times on the Acer spec sheets including, as I mentioned earlier, the only i7 system with a 14" screen.
    Reply
  • Zizo007
    spongiemaster said:
    Another reason someone could choose the Intel system is because they know how to read a spec sheet and can see the AMD system you are trying to compare is inferior feature wise. How do you not know how much RAM the Intel system has when it is listed in the specs in the original article? Because you never read the specs, and just went right to the comment section to post AMD is better at everything. The Intel system has 16GB of RAM, a touch screen, Windows 10 Pro, and a fingerprint reader all of which the AMD systems doesn't have. We can assume the Intel system will also have thunderbolt 3 since all the Ice Lake variants have it.
    Yet you failed to read what I posted hahaha
    The 650$ AMD has a fingerprint sensor.
    For 600$ you can have touchscreen too, Lenovo ideapad 5, for 700-750, you can have 16Gb RAM too 😀
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    Zizo007 said:
    Yet you failed to read what I posted hahaha
    The 650$ AMD has a fingerprint sensor.
    For 600$ you can have touchscreen too, Lenovo ideapad 5, for 700-750, you can have 16Gb RAM too 😀

    I didn't miss it, the fingerprint reader is not mentioned in the linked page from this article:

    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/acer-swift-3-aspire-5-ryzen-price
    Reply