Custom PC - UK (2020-08)

I

ntel’s10th-genCPUs,codenamedCometLake,

arefinallyhere,bringingplentyofchangeswith

them,includingmorecores,morethreadsand

sometweaksunderthehood.Here’sallyouneedtoknow

aboutthembeforeyoutaketheplunge.

Anewsocket

Themostimportantinformationhereis thatyou’llneed

a motherboardwithIntel’snewLGA1200sockettouse

CometLakeCPUs.LGA1200isn’tbackwardscompatible,

andit’salsoimpossibletoinstallolderCPUsinit, astheyuse

differentsocketguideholes.

BoardsbasedonthenewZ490chipsetcanbepricey,but

sub-£200modelsshouldbemorethanabletodealwith

thelikesoftheCorei5-10600K,pluscheapernon-Z-series

chipsetsarealreadyonthehorizon.Thesocket-mounting

holesareidenticaltoLGA115x,though,sooldcoolersand

waterblockswillstillfitlongasthey’reLGA115xcompatible.

Intelhasalsoreducedthediethicknessandincreased

theheatspreaderthicknesstocompensate,which it claims

improvesthermaltransferbetweenthedieandCPU cooler,

whilealsomaintainingcoolercompatibility.

Meanwhile,corecountshavenowpushedupto a

maximum of ten. However, rather than letting cheaper

models languish down the performance tables due to low

thread counts, Intel has now added Hyper-Threading support

to every Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 CPU, which should help

them to compete with AMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen chips.

The Z490 chipset

Motherboard manufacturers, in particular Gigabyte, originally

suggested a modicum of PCI-E 4 support with Z490, but it

turns out this is a future feature that will be introduced with

Rocket Lake – Intel’s 11th-gen CPU range. Gigabyte has gone

as far as including PCI-E 4 M.2 ports on its motherboards, but

they aren’t active, as Comet Lake CPUs only support PCI-E 3.

The ports wouldn’t even work with a PCI-E 3 SSD in our tests.

The Z490 chipset doesn’t actually differ that much from

Z390. There are no additional PCI-E lanes, and the ones you

do get still only offer PCI-E 3 support. The key differences are

options for 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, as well as Wi-Fi 6 or 802.11ax

support, while USB 3.2 Gen 2 is now native. In short, there

really aren’t any reasons here to justify an upgrade, other

than the new socket, and even if PCI-E 4 were supported,

the CPUs are by far the main reason to consider buying a

Z490 motherboard.

ANTONY LEATHER

REVIEWS / PROCESSORS

The Z490 chipset
doesn’t change
much over its
predecessor,
although it does add
the option for 2.
Gigabit Ethernet
and Wi-Fi 6

INTEL: THE 10TH GENERATION

Reviews

Intel’s 10th-gen CPUs require a new motherboard with

an LGA1200 socket