This year has been a great year for CPU launches for both Intel and AMD. Intel finally offered to the mainstream platform an 8-core/16 thread CPU (the i9-9900K) and they also refreshed the high-end desktop CPUs, bringing back solder as thermal interface material to please PC enthusiasts and overclockers.
AMD launched new CPUs as well, with their second generation Ryzen and Threadripper, being very well received by the community and next year looks even better thanks to AMD’s 7nm ZEN 2 micro-architecture.
With single-thread performance improvements and more cores per chip, AMD became a serious threat for Intel, as rumors begin to point that Intel is currently developing a 10 core/20 threads CPU for their mainstream platform in response to AMD’s Ryzen.
Intel is also facing new competition in the server area as well due to Amazon launching their own server chips challenging Intel on price. Amazon unveiled its own server CPU this Monday and said that their chip, code name Graviton, will support new versions of their main EC2 cloud service. Up until now Amazon, as well as other cloud service providers, had used almost entirely Xeon CPUs, so things are not looking too hot for Intel right now.
But going back to the topic at hand, the rumor for the 10-core chip comes from a Taiwanese forum and mentions that a CPU under code name Comet Lake is currently under development based on Intel’s 14nm manufacturing node. Seems that Intel can’t go lower with the manufacturing process at this point
You may ask why is Intel doing this and how will a 10-core CPU hit the market?
Taking into account that the current 8c/16t i9-9900k is already dominating the mainstream market in both productivity and gaming matching even the more expensive high-end desktop processors, AMD may need to add another few cores to match an Intel 10-core mainstream CPU if we assume that the AMD processor will have same frequencies and boost clocks a current i9-9900k. So most likely Intel is aiming for complete dominance in the mainstream market and leave AMD in the dust.
AMD’s Threadripper 2920X is already in front of Intel’s current 10-core CPU the Core i9-7900X in multi-thread workloads. However the 2920X boosts only up to 4Ghz on all cores whereas the Core I9-9900K has a massive 4.7 Ghz boost making it 700Mhz faster on all cores than the Threadripper. Seeing these simple data, the impact is clearer the Core i9-9900K outperforms the Core i9-7900X despite a 2-core deficit and is only a couple of points behind the Threadripper 2920X, despite lacking 4-cores.
If Intel does have a response to AMD Ryzen 2, a 10-core CPU for mainstream platform is the answer. If they manage to offer boost speeds matching the Core I9-9900K this will cancel AMD’s plan for holding on to the top spot next year.
But you know how rumors go, they may hold or they might not. A 10-core Intel CPU for the mainstream market as competition will tighten forcing AMD to do even better but we will just have to wait and see what the next year brings us.
