Take that Intel 10th-gen ‘Comet Lake’ CPU leak with a massive grain of salt

We don’t normally wish to report on rumors right here at PCWorld as a result of, effectively, they’re normally (however not all the time) full of crap. But you’ll need to take the newest “leak” of Intel’s 10th-gen Comet Lake Core processors with an excellent greater serving to of salt than typical. These slides simply scream pretend.

The Comet Lake slide first got here to our consideration from Computerbase, which duly remarked that some issues appear off. Still, we’ve since seen it repeated a number of different instances across the net and on different PC websites with out skepticism. (No, we received’t identify names.) Make no mistake: The advances these slides promise could be superb in the event that they wind up true. Ten-core processors! Hyper-threading for everybody! Prices that compete with AMD’s excellent new Ryzen 3000 processors! Everything’s arising Milhouse!

But a number of small inconsistencies on the slide don’t add up. Here is the so-called “leaked” product particulars, through Twitter consumer Sohachi, although they apparently originated in Asian tech boards.

Sohachi via Twitter

And right here’s what’s off about it:

• The greenback signal is listed after the costs, not earlier than—a European idiosyncrasy. Intel has all the time positioned the greenback sign up its correct place, earlier than the worth.
• It contains a “Lithography” column exhibiting the chips being constructed utilizing a 14nm+++ manufacturing course of. Intel hasn’t included this in any latest product element reveals, and sure wouldn’t begin to incorporate it till the corporate lastly achieves 10nm quantity manufacturing.
• A “Maximum all-cores Turbo frequency” is listed. While that could be good info to have, Intel hasn’t offered it just lately, as a substitute sticking to the standard single-core increase clock. (Though Intel just lately mentioned its upcoming Core i9-9900KS will hit 5GHz on all cores.) Core X chips received a separate Turbo Boost 3.zero ranking in its official slides, however that’s not the identical factor.
• It additionally contains a “Code name” column, one other oddity for Intel.
• The slide lacks a column for Optane Memory Support, a platform benefit that Intel has been pushing arduous for a number of processor generations. It additionally lacks Intel’s typical column for indicating unlocked processors.
• Would Intel actually use terrible five-digit-long product SKUs like Core i9-10900KF? I hope not. Hey Intel, for those who’re studying this: Please no.

Don’t take my phrase for it, although. Here are the official slides Intel offered for the Eighth- and Ninth-gen desktop processor launches for comparability:

Intel

Intel

I virtually dinged this seemingly pretend for utilizing the inaccurate “SKU’s” as a substitute of “SKUs” within the field on the high of the slide, however Intel additionally received it mistaken for the Ninth-gen processor particulars chart.

That’s about it. It’s an incredible time to be a PC fanatic, with core counts exploding and know-how advancing on each entrance. But don’t put the cart earlier than the horse, and positively don’t imagine every thing you see on the web. Consider…