Skip to main content

Intel denies claims that 10nm on desktop is dead

Intel’s struggles with 10nm have been well-documented over the years, and recent reports have been adding fuel to the fire. German site Hardwareluxx reports that Intel may skip using its 10nm process node for desktop-bound CPUs and shoot for 7nm chips instead, targeting a 2022 release.

The tip stems from supposed trustworthy insiders claiming Intel can’t meet the mass market’s demand for 10nm desktop processors.

Related Videos

Since the publishing of this story, Intel has provided Digital Trends with the following statement to comment on the matter: “We continue to make great progress on 10nm, and our current roadmap of 10nm products includes desktop.”

The statement contradicts the supposed leaked roadmap, which showed that the 9th-gen Coffee Lake-S Refresh window ends during the third quarter of Intel’s corporate year for 2020. Intel’s 10th-gen Comet Lake-S then stretched from the second quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2021 (corporate year), while Rocket Lake-S began in the second quarter of 2021. Both Comet Lake-S and Rocket Lake-S are said to be based on Intel’s 14nm process.

Comet Lake-S could have up to 10 cores and 20 threads requiring a TDP of 35 to 125 watts. It will support DDR4 memory, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps), 4K content and HDR, PCIe 3.0, Intel Optane, and more.

Little is known about the Rocket Lake-S family, though it would supposedly offer up to 10 cores as well. Speculation hints to Intel porting newer core technology to the Rocket Lake platform for increased performance.

Finally, the roadmap shows that the 7nm Meteor Lake-S would then follow after Rocket Lake-S. This would be the first desktop chip to use a new process node since Intel launched its Broadwell platform in 2015. This platform is said to be powered by Intel’s Ocean Cove core design currently in development, but it reportedly wouldn’t be available until 2022. This would have given Intel considerably more time to refine the process, but left AMD with a large lead in the high-end desktop space in the meantime.

Leaked roadmaps have been wrong in the past, and Intel’s official statement was pretty direct. We don’t know the details of Intel’s actual roadmap, but it seems as if 10nm desktop chips are still in the works.

It should be noted that Intel’s Ice Lake family for laptops already offers 10nm chips. These 10th-gen chips are shipping on devices available now, such as the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 and Razer Blade Stealth. These new chips benefited from the inclusion of the new Iris Plus integrated graphics, which doubled the graphics performance over previous generations.

Updated on October 14 to include Intel’s official statement.

Editors' Recommendations

Intel says Moore’s Law is alive and well. Nvidia says it’s dead. Which is right?
Intel CEO and Nvidia CEO, side by side.

The decades-old debate over Moore's Law was brought center stage following two major announcements over the last week -- one for Intel's upcoming Raptor Lake processors and the other about Nvidia's RTX 4090 graphics card.

Intel, in keeping with its consistent messaging since CEO Pat Gelsinger took the reins, proudly stated that "Moore's law is alive and well" to a roomful of applause. This came just a week after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang restated his belief that Moore's Law is, in fact, dead. Both tech CEOs can't be correct, which means there's more going on in these two statements than meets the eye.
What is Moore's Law, anyways?

Read more
Intel just accidentally leaked a mysterious 34-core CPU
Intel's CEO holding a Raptor Lake processor.

A mysterious wafer full of Intel Raptor Lake-S processors was spotted during Intel Innovation 2022. While that in itself may not sound odd, the weird part is that the wafer contains 34-core chips that are labeled as Raptor Lake, whereas Intel's new flagship Core i9-13900K maxes out at 24 cores.

Is Intel hiding an even more powerful processor? That'd be nice, but all signs point to it being something else entirely -- a Sapphire Rapids chip.

Read more
Ryzen 7 7700X vs. Intel Core i7-12700K
The Ryzen 7 7700X CPU.

Looking for a CPU upgrade for your gaming machine? We’ve got some good news: AMD's Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 CPUs are set to deliver significant boosts in performance compared to the previous generation and long-awaited support upgrades for the latest connections.

The Ryzen 7 7700X chip, in particular, looks like an excellent combination between a performance upgrade and affordability. But that also sets it against the similarly priced Intel Core i7 12700K -- a chip from the 12th-generation Alder Lake series Intel released in late 2021. Just how do these processors stack up, especially for gamers? Let’s take a look at what we know.
Specs

Read more