Put down that wallet before buying a PC — Intel just teased its eighth-gen CPU

By Kevin Parrish Published February 9, 2017

8th gen intel core launch — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Intel is such a tease. After spending for what seemed like forever talking about its seventh-generation “Kaby Lake” desktop processors, the company finally revealed the chips in January during the CES 2017 tech convention. Now, just mere weeks later, Intel is already teasing us with a new dangling carrot: Eighth-generation Intel Core processors.

The tease showed up on Intel’s official Twitter account revealing that its eighth-generation CPUs are on the 2017 roadmap for the second half of the year. However, the real meat of the story behind the social tease is that Intel “mentioned” its upcoming Core i7-8000 processor series during its investors meeting on Thursday. The chips will be based on Intel’s 14nm plus processing technology it used with the seventh-generation chips.

Recommended Videos

If you’re scratching your head with this one, you’re not alone. Intel was expected to launch three 14nm+ processor families in the second half of 2017 and into the first quarter of 2018: Kaby Lake-X, Skylake-X, and Coffee Lake. The supposed high-end Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors are actually expected to launch during Gamescom 2017 in August supporting Intel’s flagship X299 platform for enthusiasts.

Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X will be based on the 14nm plus process node and marketed under the Core i7-7000 K-Series brand. Skylake-X will have a maximum core count of 10 and Kaby Lake-X will have a maximum core count of four. At least four SKUs will be made available at launch.

That leaves Coffee Lake, which was expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2018. These will be six-core mainstream processors based on the 14nm plus process node, and split up into Coffee Lake-U (ultra-low power), Coffee Lake-X (enthusiast desktop), Coffee Lake-S (mainstream desktop), and Coffee Lake-H (notebook) SKUs. They reportedly not only improve on the Kaby Lake design, but include “architectural enhancements.”

That’s supposedly everything Intel is expected to roll out from its 14nm plus process technology. The 2-in-1 device Intel showcased during its CES 2017 keynote was a Cannon Lake processor based on the company’s 10nm process technology. Cannon Lake chips are expected to arrive in 2-in-1s and similar products during the back half of 2017.

So what Intel is likely teasing on Twitter is Coffee Lake. That’s just a guess, and Intel wasn’t willing to talk about the eighth-generation lineup outside what it revealed through Twitter. Intel told us that the new chips were only “briefly mentioned” during Thursday’s investor meeting. Sigh.

Ultimately, customer will see 20-30 percent better performance with the eighth-generation Core i7-8000 Series chips than they did with the Skylake family. That’s due to a 10 percent performance increase when moving from Skylake to Kaby Lake, and a 15 percent performance increase when moving from Kaby Lake to Coffee Lake.

Since Intel won’t spill the official goods behind its Twitter post, we’ll have to wait for the Computex and/or CeBit tech conventions later this year. We already know Intel isn’t sweating AMD’s Ryzen invasion, and this is probably one of the reasons why.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then…

Computing

Intel Comet Lake F-series chips make its next-gen all the more confusing

Stock photo of Intel 9th gen core processor.

Intel is planning to launch F-series versions of its 10th-generation Comet Lake chips alongside K-series and standard CPUs, bringing the total count of new-generation CPUs to 18, with as many as four versions of the same CPU in some cases. The F-series alternatives have the same core counts, clock speeds, and TDPs, but they will be sold with no onboard graphics, which could make them slightly cheaper.

The F-series alternative CPUs were first introduced with Intel's eighth and ninth generation Coffee Lake CPUs, with the Core i3-8100F, i3-9350KF, i5-9400F, and i9-9900KF. They debuted at the same price as their counterparts with graphics, but over time we've seen the price of the CPUs with deactivated onboard GPUs fall to around $25 less than the non-F alternative. That's not always the case. Sometimes the discounts can be greater, sometimes less. In general though, F-series CPUs tend to be a little cheaper. As you might expect, considering they offer less for your money.

Computing

The next Snapdragon X chip will be even more powerful than we thought

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus

As part of Qualcomm's latest Investor Day, the company confirmed that its next PC chip, the Snapdragon X Elite Gen 2, will use the Oryon v3 CPU. This comes as a surprise to many, as the Oryon v2 was just announced last month alongside plans to use it with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset for smartphones.

Since the current Snapdragon X Elite chip uses an Oryon v1 CPU, many assumed that the 2nd-gen chip would use the 2nd-gen CPU -- but it seems the PC chips will be skipping over this generation entirely.

Computing

The Windows 11 24H2 update is causing even more problems

The Windows 11 24H2 update had already been giving users a real headache with problems such as bugs for visual layouts and flaws for certain wallpaper apps. And now, as Microsoft confirms in a support document, some people without administrative privileges can't change the time zone in the Date & Time view, among myriad other issues related to the important Windows 11 update.

A Feedback Hub post also reports a time issue after exiting Sleep Mode, specifically after about one out of every five overnight sleep cycles. There is also a report that the time is not syncing correctly following daylight saving time. Put differently, the update doesn't break the time zone, but only affects the toggle or makes it very difficult to modify it.