2017’s Intel i7 will become 2020’s i3 – Comet Lake brings Hyperthreading to Core-i3

Intel has to respond to Ryzen, especially now that the company’s 3rd Generation of Zen CPUs are on store shelves. AMD can offer PC builders more cores/threads for their money, and with Ryzen 3rd Gen’s boosted single-threaded performance, Intel can no longer ignore their rival. 

With their 10th Generation of desktop core processors, Intel is preparing to make some major changes. If today’s leaks are correct, Hyperthreading is coming to Intel’s quad-core Core i3 lineup, creating processors with four cores and eight threads. Yes, that’s right; 2017’s Core-i7 is becoming 2020’s Core-i3. That’s a 2x boost in core/thread count for i3, showcasing exactly how far the industry has come over the past three years. 

Intel’s i3-10100 processor has appeared on the SiSoftware database, with TUM_APISAK being the first to find the processor online. The CPU comes with four cores, eight threads and a base clock speed of 3.6GHz. Not bad for what appears to be a low-end model. 

Comet Lake is due to be Intel’s next series of 14nm processors, and rumour has it that Intel’s entire core lineup will feature Hyperthreading, with a 10-core i9 processor sitting at the top. This would give i5 six cores and twelve threads, i7 eight cores and sixteen threads and i9 ten cores and twenty threads. Yes, the core architecture will still be Skylake, but with Comet Lake Intel plans to push AMD’s Ryzen lineup in the realms of pure PC performance.