There is a Geekbench listing of a curious new 10th generation Intel ‘Comet Lake-S’ CPU- the Core i9-10850K. This CPU is Intel’s second Core i9 SKU in this generation that was recently discovered, with the earlier one being the Core i9-10910, an Apple-exclusive processor. Why does this CPU exist remains a mystery? But it is planned and shown in Geekbench.
The mysterious Comet Lake-S
Based on what’s known via TUM_APISAK, this one has a base clock of 3.60 GHz, with up to 5.17 GHz Turbo Boost clocks. Its just 100MHz behind of the Core i9-10900K. The rest is identical to it- 20MB L3 Cache and 2.5 MB L2 Cache. It is very likely this has 125w TDP like all unlocked CPUs. So, why have an identical CPU with a lesser base/ boost clock?
For OEMs or to compete with the Matisse Refresh lineup?
On the other hand, the Core i9-10850K could be Intel’s knee-jerk response to the upcoming Ryzen 9 3900XT. This is set to be launched tomorrow at the time of writing. But there’s also another speculation that this is most likely made for OEMs. This speculation makes sense as 100MHz difference between the variants on retail doesn’t make sense. It only amounts to 5% performance difference between the two in multi-threaded tests on Geekbench.
For now, it is known when this CPU will be launched, and it is on retail, for how much. Sure, some could call it a cheaper Core i9 10th gen but now cheaper can it possibly get? The Core i9-10900K costs $996 at the time of writing.
