New Intel Architecture Appears on Benchmark Database?

Intel is fully expected (all going well) to finally drop the ever-increasing plus marks from their 14nm architecture processors and move onto their 10nm designs at some point in 2020. That is, at least, the plan in so far that we are aware of at the time of writing. It seems, however, that they may have (yet another?) new 14nm CPU range on the way.

In a report via TechPowerUp, a benchmark listing has appeared which although on the surface looks like one of their normal 14nm designs, might have something special cooking. Yes, we may indeed be looking at a new architecture from Intel.

New Intel Architecture Leaks on Benchmark Listing?

On the surface, the benchmark seems to indicate a 14nm design featuring six cores and twelve threads running at 3 GHz. Fairly standard stuff so far, right? Well, when you dig into the details it starts to get a little interesting.

The CPU benchmark cites an L2 cache configuration of 1.25mb. A figure that has not been seen in any Intel release to date and is actually quite notably higher than anything seen before. The closest is the i9-10980XE, but even that (only) has 1mb.

What Do We Think?

The benchmark undoubtedly asks more questions than it answers. It’s entirely possible that Intel is planning another brand new 14nm range, but the specifications of the processor itself don’t really make a whole lot of sense for a new and/or mind-blowing release either.

We suppose it could be a new mobile range, perhaps even yet another refresh, but even that doesn’t seem like an entirely satisfactory explanation. All that is known for the moment is that this is (probably) neither Cascade-Lake, Ice Lake, nor Comet-Lake. Which basically means it has to be something new!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!