The next generation of Intel chips is here, as Tiger Lake rocks up, distinct from Tiger King, of course.
New computers are pretty normal, but new computer chips are a little less regular. You can typically expect a new generation from Intel and AMD every 12 or 18 months, though there are previews here and there throughout the year.
We saw one of those very early in 2020 at one of the year’s only consumer tech shows, CES 2020, where Intel showed off some graphical prowess that was coming in its next processors, something the company called “Tiger Lake”. While you can expect improved performance and speed boosts in the new chips, all built on a 10nm process with Willow Cove architecture, Intel’s Tiger Lake was also about delivering improvements to laptops in the graphics department, thanks to Intel’s “Xe” graphics technology, also known as “Iris Xe”.
Intel Xe is a technology change from Intel’s standard Iris graphics, boasting up to twice the graphics performance for recent games, supporting more new games running at Full HD 1080p, and competing with other discrete graphics systems. While we’ve not seen final releases, the tests we saw at CES 2020 were impressive enough, and we’re seeing release some nine months later, so we’re expecting Xe to be better.
Beyond the graphics updates, Intel says its new chips deliver a little more productivity performance, feature up to two times faster video editing and nearly three times faster photo editing, while also boasting hardware-supported Dolby Vision HDR. There’s also support for WiFi 6’s gigabit speeds, plus an audio system using the CPU that can suppress background noise using the computer chip. It’s a pretty meaty release, it seems.
Expected in numerous computers from across the market, it’s also not the only major announcement from Intel this week.
Intel is also renaming its super thin and light project PCs, the Project Athena laptops, with the new computers becoming “Evo”. Much like how an “ultrabook” was once a template to create super thin PC notebooks, Evo sets a bit of a template for manufacturers, too, delivering a design that can provide at least nine hours of battery life on laptops with Full HD screens, a faster battery recharge system, and the ability to wake from sleep in less than a second.
Intel Evo laptops are Project Athena notebooks, but under a different name, with these now drawing from Intel’s 11th gen Core processors, the Tiger Lake variety.
And it looks like there will be quite a few variations, with the 11xx chips arriving in Core i5 and Core i7 with Intel Xe graphics, while Intel’s Core i3 chips will get the older Intel UHD graphics.
Expect these chips in laptops very soon, with announcements by manufacturers on the way, and new Intel art to go with it, because Intel has changed that, too. Pretty much the moment Intel says there are new chips, manufacturers are not going to be far behind with their releases.
