Intel Will Likely Recycle Coffee Lake iGPU for 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs

[harlan4096]

A second coming for UHD Graphics 630 and Graphics 610.

t's increasingly looking like Intel's desktop Comet Lake processors, like the mobile chips, will use the same iGPU found in Coffee Lake CPUs.

HP's document for the 288 Pro G6 Microtower PC [PDF] also shows specifications for various 10th Generation Comet Lake processors, as potted by hardware leaker @momomo_us. Given the device's reduced footprint, it's leveraging Intel's 65W models, including the i7-10700, i5-10400, i3-10100 and Celeron and Pentium Gold parts from the same Comet Lake party.

Early 10th Gen Comet Lake desktop benchmarks pointed to CPU core counts for the i7-10700 (eight cores), i5-10500 (six cores) and i5-10400 (six cores). Meanwhile, the i3-10100 is reportedly has four cores. The Celeron G5900, Pentium Gold G6400 and G6600 feature dual-core designs with the first lacking Hyper-Threading.

Intel 10th Generation Comet Lake Specs*

Processor Cores / Threads Base Clock (GHz) L3 Cache (MB) Graphics Intel vPro Support
Core i7-10700
8 / 16 2.9 16 UHD Graphics 630 Yes
Core i5-10500
6 / 12 3.1 12 UHD Graphics 630 Yes
Core i5-10400
6 / 12 2.9 12 UHD Graphics 630 No
Core i3-10100
4 / 8 3.6 6 UHD Graphics 630 No
Pentium Gold G6600
2 / 4 4.2 4 UHD Graphics 630 No
Pentium Gold G6400
2 / 4 4.0 4 UHD Graphics 610 No
Celeron G5900
2 / 2 3.4 2 UHD Graphics 610 No

* Specifications in the table are unconfirmed.

The UHD Graphics 630 (GT2) and UHD Graphics 610 (GT1) are an integrated graphics solutions that Intel introduced with Coffee Lake. It's basically a rebranded HD Graphics 630 that was inside the previous Kaby Lake chips, with the exception that the UHD variant features higher clock speeds and a couple of new features, like support for HDCP 2.2 and DisplayPort 1.2a.

The UHD Graphics 630 holds up to 24 Execution Units (EUs), equivalent to 192 shading units. The base and boost clock speed vary according to the processor. For reference, it has a base clock speed of 350 MHz and a boost clock that tops out at 1,200 MHz. There's are a couple possibilities here. Intel could slap the iGPU into Comet Lake as it is or the chipmaker could give it a small speed upgrade beforehand.

The UHD Graphics 610 is a lower-tier solution for entry-level CPUs. It only has 12 EUs, which equates to 96 shading units. The UHD Graphics 610 shares the same base clock as the UHD Graphics 630. However, the boost clock is locked to 1,050 MHz.

If HP's specification table (above) is accurate, the UHD Graphics 630 will find its way into Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 Comet Lake processors and selected Pentium Gold chips, such as the G6600. The weaker Comet Lake offerings are seemingly stuck with the UHD Graphics 610. Out of all the Comet Lake chips, it seems that only the i5-10500 and i7-10700 support Intel's vPro feature.

Comet Lake is pretty much the fourth refresh of the Skylake microarchitecture, so it wouldn't be surprising to see Intel reuse a few things. Additionally, even the UHD Graphics 610 is more than sufficient for most users. The iGPU allows for a bit of entry-level gaming fun too, plus some budget systems today pair the CPU with a cheap, entry-level discrete graphics card, making the iGPU more of a backup anyway.
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