With AMD’s next-gen Ryzen 4000 lineup just around the corner, reports indicate that Intel is gearing up for a Comet Lake riposte. The exact timing for Comet Lake desktop parts was up in the air, until now. WCCFTech’s AIB sources indicated that the processor maker is prepping a Z490 motherboard announcement, really soon.
How soon? We’re talking about a May announcement timeframe for Z490 boards, with Comet Lake desktop parts arriving in the months to come. We know well that Comet Lake is another iterative refresh. But is Z490 more of the same? Reports appear to indicate that the chipset will feature a number of changes. What exactly are these?
For starters, Comet Lake CPUs will have a higher pin-count, a change accommodated by the LGA 1200 socket. As a result, LGA 1200 will not be backward compatible with earlier CPUs. For the time being, this is a Comet Lake-exclusive chipset.
| CPU Name | Cores / Threads | Base Clock | Boost Clock | Cache | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i9-10900K | 10/20 | 3.7 GHz | 5.1 GHz 5.3 GHz (Velocity) | 20 MB | 125W |
| Intel Core i9-10900 | 10/20 | 2.8 GHz | 5.0 GHz 5.2 GHz (Velocity) | 20 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i9-10900T | 10/20 | 2.0 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 20 MB | 35W |
| Intel Core i7-10700K | 8/16 | 3.8 GHz | 5.0 GHz | 16 MB | 125W |
| Intel Core i7-10700 | 8/16 | 2.9 GHz | 4.7 GHz | 16 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i7-10700T | 8/16 | 2.0 GHz | 4.4 GHz | 16 MB | 35W |
| Intel Core i5-10600K | 6/12 | 4.1 GHz | 4.8 GHz | 12 MB | 125W |
| Intel Core i5-10600 | 6/12 | 3.3 GHz | 4.8 GHz | 12 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i5-10600T | 6/12 | 2.4 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 12 MB | 35W |
| Intel Core i5-10500 | 6/12 | 3.1 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 12 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i5-10500T | 6/12 | 2.3 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 12 MB | 35W |
| Intel Core i5-10400 | 6/12 | 2.9 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 12 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i3-10350K | 4/8 | TBD | TBD | 8 MB | 125W |
| Intel Core i3-10320 | 4/8 | 3.8 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 8 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i3-10300 | 4/8 | 3.7 GHz | 4.4 GHz | 8 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i3-10100 | 4/8 | 3.6 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 8 MB | 65W |
| Intel Core i3-10100T | 4/8 | 2.3 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 8 MB | 35W |
The Z490 naturally accompanies the launch of Intel’s Comet Lake desktop lineup. While nothing’s confirmed, leaks indicate that we’ll have a 10-core halo part, the Core i9-10900K, an 8-core i7-10700K, and higher core and thread counts across the board. Clock speeds and cache sizes are expected to increase as well. The big question, though, is whether or not this is enough to offset AMD’s IPC and clock speeds gains with the Ryzen 4000 series. Probably not but we shall see.
