Intel Architecture Day 2020: New Tiger-Lake CPUs, XE Graphics, and More

Additionally, the new chips will come with built-in Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4, faster PCIe Gen-4, DDR5 memory support, new security protection called control-flow enforcement technology, better AI circuitry for voice control and speech-to-text conversion, and support for more and higher-resolution displays.

The biggest boost for the new Tiger Lake chips is Intel’s new Xe graphics. Consumers usually rely on discrete graphics cards for better performance. The new Xe-LP will be integrated but Intel claims that it is much faster than earlier integrated graphics. It is optimised for size and power and features up to 96 execution units, asynchronous compute, AI inferencing, an updated media encode/decode engine, 12-bit colour, four display pipelines, variable-rate shading, adaptive sharpening, and adaptive sync with variable refresh rates up to 360Hz.

There will also be the Xe-HP implementation for gamers, which will support hardware ray tracing and GDDR6 memory due in 2021.

We already know that Intel’s plans to introduce 7nm process based chips have been delayed. Thus we see a 10nm refresh, but thankfully Intel is not adding numerous ‘+’ at the end. Instead, we now have the 10nm SuperFin branding. Said to be the largest intra-node enhancement in Intel’s history, there is an improvement in the structure of FinFET transistors to improve performance and power efficiency without the need of pulling down the fabrication size. According to Intel, SuperFin transistors allow better passage of current with improved interconnects along with reduced resistance and voltage droop.