For quite some time now, Intel has had a stranglehold on the desktop CPU market, especially when it comes to gaming. A recent resurgence from AMD has seen a large chunk of that market being taken away, with AMD Ryzen offering performance benefits for productivity, streamers and content creators.
Due to this AMD Ryzen resurgence, Intel has been forced to come up with ideas to fight back at AMD Ryzen and regain some of that market share. A recent Twitter post by TUM_APISAK leaked out information that Intel will be treating the new 10th generation Core i3 line of CPUs with Hyper-Threading, which will provide 4-cores and 8-threads, something that was traditionally only available on Intel’s top of the range Core i7 CPUs.
Following the reports of Core i3 receiving Hyper-Threading in the 10th generation line up, it now seems we should expect the same from 10th generation Core i5, after evidence found again on the SiSoftware database may have confirmed this rumour. However, while the database listing did not specify Core i5, the new entry does show an Intel CPU with 6-cores and 12-threads.
It's no secret that Intel has launched 6-core 12-thread processors previously in the Core i7-8700K and Core i7-8086K, along with some new CPUs from the mobile Comet Lake family. The main point of interest in the recent SiSoftware database entry is that the CPU in question was tested in a desktop platform, on an ECS H470-SF110 motherboard, with only a base clock of 2.0GHz mentioned.
Again, this could prove Intel is willing to launch their entry-level and mid-range CPUs with Hyper-Threading in their 10th generation line-up. If the Core i3 is to get 4-cores and 8-threads it only seems natural for a 10th generation Core i5 to have 6-cores and 12-threads, which means we could see the next generation of Core i7 CPUs, with 8-cores and 16-threads and possibly Core i9 being 10-core 20-thread processors.
Obviously, this is all just speculation, however, it would provide a decent looking 10th generation desktop line-up from Intel, especially if they can produce similar CPU clock frequencies to 9th generation. A 10-core, 20-thread CPU which could push 5.0Ghz on all cores would make for a pretty hefty boost in gaming I’m sure.
KitGuru says: With very little information from Intel regarding 10th generation desktop CPUs, this is all speculation. However, when you consider Intel still may have a slight advantage over AMD in gaming, Hyper-Threading across all 10th generation Core desktop CPUs would make sense if Intel want to retain the gaming CPU market.