Intel just launched the Comet Lake-S processors. Some of the new models are already in stock, new motherboards with the needed new socket 1200 are also ready. Reviews of the new generation are mixed. On the one hand, these are powerful processors that top the charts, especially in gaming benchmarks. Improvements over the prior generation include cooling optimizations, higher clocks and a more intelligent turbo clock. On the other hand, it’s just an iteration of the same old architecture, they stayed at 14nm, and power usage can get really high now (partly depending on the motherboard settings). Two processors were sent out:
Anandtech als managed to review the i7-10700K, which they call a rehash of the i9-9900K.
But let’s look at the benchmarks. Including the new processors and their reviews, they reach a very high position in the meta benchmark for games. The 10900K is the new best processor for gaming, the 10600K is one of the best:
But in typically multithreaded applications the 3950X remains faster, with the other Ryzen processors being close:
These charts will update over time when new data gets available. Click on the image to go to the detailed comparison page.
I’m looking forward to reviews of the smaller new processors like the i5-10400F. Those could be interesting alternatives to Ryzen, 5 with a lower energy usage than their high end siblings.
The pc builder will now start to recommend these new processors and stop using 9th gen processors as starting point, since the new socket provides no upgrade path for the 9th generation processors. In the short term that will result in more Ryzen builds, until the new parts are available for competitive prices. The system will also get a rework of how it computes the energy estimation (since TDP even with an intelligent buffer is difficult for these processors) and the more energy hungry of the new processors will get special treatment in the cpu cooler selection, to be combined only with powerful enough cpu coolers (likely only AIOs).