With the release of Intel's next-generation 10nm Tiger Lake CPU family imminent, the company has started sending out marketing kits to the press which is part of a promotional campaign for its 11th Generation mobility family.
Intel Tiger Lake 10nm CPUs Launch Imminent in Summer 2020, First Marketing Kits Sent Out To Press
The Intel Tiger Lake family will be the second 10nm lineup to hit the mobility platform after Ice Lake and will offer key improvements in all aspects. The two major updates to the Tiger Lake processors family will include the brand new Willow Cove core architecture for the CPU side & the Xe graphics architecture for the GPU side. Intel has promised improved CPU & GPU performance along with up-lift in efficiency over existing 10nm parts.
Intel has started its Tiger Lake marketing campaign and is sending out marketing kits to the tech press in its first promotional wave. Legit Review's editor, Nathan Kirsch, got hands on one of these kits and shared it on his Twitter feed. The kit includes two orange Lily (Lilium Tiger's Roar) seeds & a letter which reads the following:
Summer is Coming
And so is our next-gen mobile processor, codename Tiger Lake.
The past few months have been unique and unprecedented. We hope this tiger lily can brighten the world. Grow it or give to a friend - we can always use a little more inspiration in our lives.
It's definitely a nice way to promote and market its next-generation Tiger Lake CPUs and also eco-friendly. Intel has already confirmed that Tiger Lake CPUs will be launching in mid-2020 and we can expect a range of new notebooks and laptops show up starting Q3 2020.
The 11th Generation Tiger Lake Family - Built For Mobile Laptops & Gaming Notebooks
The Intel Tiger Lake CPUs will be termed as the 11th Generation Core family and would be kept exclusive to laptops and gaming notebooks. The lineup would come in three flavors which would include Tiger Lake-Y, Tiger Lake-U, and Tiger Lake-H. There have been several leaks for Tiger Lake-Y and Tiger Lake-U processors which are being internally tested by various OEMs and laptop vendors who would integrate the CPUs in their next-generation devices.
The Tiger Lake-Y family would consist of 4.5-9W TDP CPUs and would feature up to 4 cores and 8 threads. The GPU side would include a GT2 tier, Gen 12 Xe GPU. The Tiger Lake-Y processors will come in the UP4 (BGA 1598) package. The Tiger Lake-U family would consist of 15-28W TDP CPUs and would feature 4 cores and 8 threads, albeit at much higher clock speeds with boost nearing 4.50 GHz. These CPUs would also feature GT2 tier, Gen 12 Xe GPUs, and would come in the UP3 (BGA 1499) package.
Then there's the high-performance Tiger Lake-H lineup that would consist of up to 8 core and 16 thread chips based on the new Willow Cove architecture. The CPUs would carry up to 34 MB of cache that's 24 MB L3 (3 MB L3 per core) and 10 MB L2 (1.25 MB per core). Tiger Lake CPUs will come with an asymmetrical 48/32 KB L1 cache and will fully support AVX2 & AVX-512 instructions. Tiger Lake-H CPUs would additionally feature Two-Level Memory (2LM) and SGX (Software Guard Extensions). Intel's Tiger Lake-H family would support DDR4 speeds up to 3200 MHz, Tiger Lake-U would support DDR4-3200 / LPDDR4x 4266 and Tiger Lake-Y will exclusively support LPDDR4X ram.
Intel Tiger Lake vs AMD Renoir Mobility CPU Comparisons:
| CPU Family Name | Intel Tiger Lake-U | AMD Renoir U-Series |
|---|---|---|
| Family Branding | Intel 11th Gen Core (U-series) | AMD Ryzen 4000 (U-Series) |
| Process Node | 10nm | 7nm |
| CPU Core Architecture | Willow Cove | Zen 2 |
| CPU Cores/Threads (Max) | 4/8 | 8/16 |
| Max CPU Clocks | TBD (Core i7-1185G7) | 4.2 GHz (Ryzen 7 4800U) |
| GPU Core Architecture | Xe Graphics Engine | Vega Enhanced 7nm |
| Max GPU Cores | 96 EUs (768 cores) | 8 CUs (512 cores) |
| Max GPU Clocks | TBD | 1750 MHz |
| TDP (cTDP Down/Up) | 15W (12W-28W) | 15W (10W-25W) |
| Launch | Mid 2020 | March 2020 |
Intel Tiger Lake processors are expected to arrive in 2020 and will feature some new changes to the architecture. First up, they will have the new Willow Cove cores replacing Sunny Cove cores which are currently featured on Ice Lake processors. Along with the new cores, we will get cache redesigns as stated above, new transistor-level optimizations, and enhanced security features. Intel will also be featuring their Xe GPUs on Tiger Lake chips which would deliver a 2x increase in perf over the Gen 11 GPU featured currently on Ice Lake chips.
That and coupled with the Xe GPU architecture, the 10nm+ node should also deliver increased clocks compared to the first iteration of the 10nm+ architecture featured on Ice Lake chips. The 10nm Tiger Lake CPUs would tackle AMD's 7nm Zen 2 based Ryzen 4000 'Renoir' family in mid of 2020.