Intel Reveals New 10th-Gen Core Processors Suitable for MacBook Air and Base 13-Inch MacBook Pro

Intel today introduced its first 10th-generation Core processors, codenamed Ice Lake. Built on a 10-nanometer process, the chips are designed for thin-and-light notebooks, meaning they could potentially make their way to future entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models.

intel 10th gen ice lake
Intel says the Ice Lake chips have increased board integration, allowing manufacturers like Apple to release notebooks with sleeker designs. The chips also feature Intel's all-new Gen11 graphics architecture for up to double the graphics performance, and integrated Thunderbolt 3 and Wi-Fi 6, aka 802.11ax.

The lineup of 11 new processors includes six U-series chips and five Y-series chips:

intel ice lake list
Intel is also introducing a new processor number naming structure starting with this first set of 10th-generation Core processors, doing away with Y and U series identifiers and instead emphasizing graphics. The new structure is a bit confusing, but The Verge has a nice breakdown for deciphering them.

intel 10th gen ice lake naming
Intel expects the first notebooks with Ice Lake chips to be available in time for the holiday shopping season.

Related Roundup: MacBook Air
Related Forums: MacBook Pro, MacBook Air

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...

Top Rated Comments

Nik Avatar
70 months ago
It's a shame that Apple killed the 12" MacBook.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Hattig Avatar
70 months ago
AnandTech has an extensive preview article. https://www.anandtech.com/show/14664/testing-intel-ice-lake-10nm

tl;dr: two steps forward, two steps back
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
loudfan Avatar
70 months ago
Will this work

WITHOUT LOUD FAN?
No. LOUD FAN good.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Aston441 Avatar
70 months ago
Will this work

WITHOUT LOUD FAN?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chucker23n1 Avatar
70 months ago
It's a shame that Apple killed the 12" MacBook.
This CPU line-up is probably as good a clue as any as to why the 12-inch MacBook was killed (for now). The 2015 MacBook launched with a 4.5W Y-series CPU. Last year's Y-series CPUs then went to 5-7W. Now we're at 9W. Apple designed a laptop based on the assumption — presumably promised as such by Intel — that Intel would keep iterating on a roughly 4.5W TDP CPU, and they failed to do so, even after this process shrink.

700MHz base clock. What [S]decade[/S] century is it again?
This is good, actually. Low clock rates means Intel has some breathing room for future generations at the same process size to offer more performance simply by cranking up the clock rate.

Which TDPs are MacBook pro compatible? All of them?
9W: probably the MacBook Air (which is currently at 7W, but presumably Apple has learnt the lesson not to trust Intel on that).

15W: low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro.

28W: possibly the higher-end 13-inch MacBook Pro, but Apple probably wants more options for that. Also, this CPU model won't ship for a while.

Critically, none of these are even remotely an option for the 15-inch (16-inch?) MacBook Pro, which likely won't see another CPU upgrade until Comet Lake-H in Q2 2020. It'll offer up to ten cores, but it will still be at 14nm and still use a revised Skylake architecture. Still no LPDDR4, even.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
twocents Avatar
70 months ago
Can't come soon enough the day that Apple can engineer some A-series chip and release upgrades when the Mac, not Intel, are ready. I could see the MacBook line getting resuscitated as a canary for this
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)