In what might be a disappointment for budget-conscious Intel buyers (an oxymoron in and of itself), Team Blue has apparently announced that only high-end K-series 10th-gen Comet Lake-S parts will ship first in May. Parts like the Core i9-10900K and Core i7-10700K will be available this month. However, this means that entry level offerings like the Intel Core i3-10100 (which was set to compete with the AMD Ryzen 3 3300X), won’t make it to market for at least a few more months.
This is troubling news since AMD’s 4th generation Ryzen desktop parts are set to arrive later this year, promising frequency gains due to the enhanced 7nm process and a healthy IPC uplifts thanks to the new Zen 3 core architecture. Launching budget Comet Lake desktop CPUs earlier would have given Intel the opportunity to at least stake a claim to the value market.
In the here and now, Intel’s new desktop flagship, the Core i9-10900K, and the Core i7-10700K, which both boost in excess of 5 GHz will deliver what Team Blue claims to be the best gaming performance on the market at the high-end. Value and mass-market buyers will have to wait longer, at which time discounts on the AMD Ryzen 3 series and/or the arrival of Ryzen 4000 might make budget Comet Lakes redundant.
