Intel formally announced a pretty big step forward in its mobile CPU lineup earlier today with the unveiling of four new eighth-generation Core mobile processors that stuff four cores and eight threads into a 15 W power envelope. The silicon manufacturer's website has a new product page with some information about the new Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs. Internet sleuths , including TR friend SH SOTN, were able to scrounge up higher-res shots of the box art for the desktop variants of those chips. The revised packaging has a new color scheme and apparently confirms rumors of increased core counts in desktop eight-gen Core processors.
The packaging shows that at least some Core i5 and Core i7 desktop CPUs will see their core counts increased from four to six. The box for the Core i5 model also seems to indicate that Hyper-Threading will be disabled on some of those chips. Core i7 desktop chips will apparently be Hyper-Threading-enabled as usual, for a total of at least twelve threads.
The packaging also confirms rumors that the new chips will require new motherboards with Intel's yet-to-be-announced 300-series chipsets. The integrated graphics processors in the new chips will be rebranded as "Intel UHD Graphics," though there are no underlying changes to the technology that we're aware of. The new chips still support two channels of DDR4 memory, sport Turbo Boost 2.0 clock speed management, and support Intel Smart Cache and Optane memory.
Outside of some rumors, we don't know precisely what kind of clock speed increases Intel will bring to the table for the desktop eighth-gen Core lineup, nor do we know how the chips will be priced or when to expect them in stores. We figure that reborn competition in the desktop CPU space from AMD's Ryzen processors might mean the 50% increase in core counts in the new CPUs won't come with a price hike attached when compared to current offerings.
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