Intel Core i9 Mobile And 9th Gen Coffee Lake Processors Detailed In AIDA64 Update

If you thought this was a busy year for new processor releases, hold onto your knickers, it is about to get a whole lot busier. Looking at the release notes for the latest AIDA64 system diagnostics and benchmarking utility, there are several unannounced Intel processors on tap, including a mobile Core i9 processor and what appears to be a Coffee Lake refresh, due out sometime in 2018.

Starting with mobile, it looks like Intel will be making an aggressive play in the laptop space with several new laptop chips, including at least one Core i9 processor with an unlocked multiplier. That is the Core i9-8950HK, a 6-core CPU with Hyper Threading support, 12MB of L3 cache, and a 45W TDP.

Sitting below that are a handful of other mobile products, all based on Intel's Coffee Lake-H architecture. Two of them are Core i7 parts—Core i7-8850H and Core i7-8750H, both of which are 6-core/12-thread processors with 12MB of L3 cache and a 45W TDP, same as the Core i9-8950H, but at presumably different clockspeeds and without an unlocked multiplier. The other two are the Core i5-8400H (6-core/6-thread, 9MB L3 cache, 45W TDP) and Core i3-8300H (4-core/4-thread, 8MB L3 cache, 45W TDP).


This is a nice lineup to counter whatever AMD has in store with its next generation Ryzen processors for mobile, though Intel is not solely focused on laptop chips. Here is a look at upcoming 8th Generation Core processors for the desktop:

• Intel Core i3-8000
• Intel Core i3-8000T
• Intel Core i3-8020
• Intel Core i3-8020T
• Intel Core i3-8100T
• Intel Core i3-8120
• Intel Core i3-8120T
• Intel Core i3-8300T
• Intel Core i3-8320
• Intel Core i3-8320T
• Intel Core i5-8300H
• Intel Core i5-8400B
• Intel Core i5-8400H
• Intel Core i5-8400T
• Intel Core i5-8420
• Intel Core i5-8420T
• Intel Core i5-8500
• Intel Core i5-8500B
• Intel Core i5-8500T
• Intel Core i5-8550
• Intel Core i5-8650
• Intel Core i5-8650K

Based on what we already known from Intel's existing 8th Generation Core lineup, the Core i7 parts above will be 6-core/12-thread CPUs with 12MB of cache and either a 35W or 65W TDP. All of the Core i5 processors will also be 6-core chips, but without Hyper Threading, and have 9MB of L3 cache. And finally, all of the core i3 processors will be 4-core processors without Hyper Threading, and either 8MB of L3 cache (Core i3-8300T on up) or 6MB of cache.

This is where things really start to get interesting. Having abandoned the tick-tock release cadence that guided Intel for such a long time and adopted a process-architecture-optimization scheme, it is a bit more difficult to predict what the company has in store. Looking at AIDA64's release notes, we see the following 9th Generation Core processors listed:

• Intel Core i3-9000
• Intel Core i3-9000T
• Intel Core i3-9100
• Intel Core i3-9300
• Intel Core i3-9300T
• Intel Core i5-9400
• Intel Core i5-9400T
• Intel Core i5-9500
• Intel Core i5-9600
• Intel Core i5-9600K

Considering that Intel is a little further off from mass producing its 10-nanometer Cannon Lake processors for the consumer sector, our best guess is that these will be a refresh of its Coffee Lake architecture. That leaves the field wide open in terms of cores, threads, clockspeeds, L3 cache, and TDPs, with no way to fill in the blanks unless taking some wild guesses. About the only thing we know for sure is the Core i5-9500K part will have an unlocked multiplier, as designated by the "K" in the model name.

It will be interesting to see how Intel fleshes things out. We expect more details to emerge on around the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in a couple of months.