Yesterday, Intel launched its new 10nm Ice Lake mobility (read: notebook, ultraportable), processors. The launch consists of i3, i5, and i7 notebook parts, with TDP ranging from 9W to 28W, in considerably more separate SKUs than we’re used to seeing in one generation.
The first thing to understand about these parts is the difference between the U and Y series parts. U-series are standard mobile processors with TDP between 15-28W, and Y-series are low-voltage 9-12W TDP parts for ultraportable designs. The under 20W TDP niche that Ice Lake’s Y-series fills was formerly occupied only by relatively sluggish dual-core parts, so seeing 4C/8T Core i7 parts like the i7-1060G7 with a TDP this low is a welcome change that should spell greatly improved battery life for thin-but-powerful designs such as Dell’s XPS 13 or HP’s Spectre x360 in the future.
Compared to current Whiskey Lake mobile CPUs, Ice Lake features an 18% improvement in Instructions Per Clock cycle (IPC), but a decrease in maximum clock rate. This means maximum performance is basically a wash—but we should expect substantial gains in battery life, assuming notebook manufacturers don’t scale down battery capacities in response. TDP itself is also significantly improved: the higher-performance Coffee Lake mobile i5 CPUs were rated at 45W/35W, while the new Ice Lake U-series i5s and even i7s are down to 25W/15W.
On the higher end, there’s even more reason to expect Ice Lake CPU performance to be no better than Coffee Lake CPUs. Coffee Lake’s mobile i7 CPUs feature more cores and threads than the slimmer Ice Lake parts. Ice Lake i7 U-Series CPUs are 4 core/8 thread parts, while Coffee Lake’s mobile i7s are 6C/12T.
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