Intel announces new 10th generation chips that could equip future 16 ″ MacBook Pro

Ah, Intel: when we think we are beginning to understand the spider web that his line of processors, there you come to tangle our head again. Today another one of those days.

The microchip giant today announced six new chips from its 10 generation of processors, all belonging to the family "Comet Lake" still based on the 14 nanometer architecture. The family "Ice Lake", which equips the new MacBooks Air, also from the 10th generation, but already with a 10nm architecture, yes, confusing.

Anyway, I digress: the new chips present high performance and power (45W, to be more exact) for portable computers, being excellent candidates to equip a new future 16-inch MacBook Pro. For those who are following, these processors are those promised by Intel at the last CES, with some models overcoming the 5GHz barrier.

Of the six new chips presented by Intel, two are from the line Core i5 both with four cores and 8MB of cache. Three are models Core i7, being two of six cores (12MB of cache) and one of eight cores (16MB).

The star of the new line, of course, the Core i9-10980HK, with eight cores, 16MB of cache, 2.4GHz frequency and Turbo Boost 5.3GHz; it is the only new model completely unlocked for overclock. According to Intel, it is the “fastest mobile processor in the world”.

In terms of specifications, all processors announced today feature support for Wi-Fi 6, Thunderbolt 3 with PCIe 3.0 (for eGPU use), SATA 3.0, up to 128GB of RAM (at frequencies of 2,933MHz) and USB 3.1.

Check below the table with more details of each processor model:

There are no details, so far, of when the new processors will be available to manufacturers and the market in general; Intel certainly did not provide this detail due to the scenario of uncertainty generated by the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).

Still, it is expected that we will see these beauties equipping new portable computers by the end of this year, probably in time for Apple to update its most robust MacBook Pro, perhaps in the last update with Intel processors. To be?

via MacRumors