Overnight Intel has taken the wraps of their latest 11th Gen Tiger Lake CPUs. The new processors are aimed specifically at improving performance on ultra-thin-and-light laptops, with the first wave of devices already announced. 

Tiger Lake

The 11th Gen Intel CPUs are faster than previous generations, and also include support for the company’s new integrated Xe graphics.

The Intel Xe graphics are a big jump for Intel in performance in gaming. The Xe graphics says Intel will allow users to play games including Borderlands 3, Far Cry New Dawn, Hitman 2 and other popular games at 1080p resolution, a fairly sizeable jump for Intel in terms of gaming.

The new processors also include support for Thunderbolt 4 which supports fast-charging, external monitors and extended storage over a single standard USB-C cable, and Wi-Fi 6 for improved wireless connectivity.

The Tiger Lake CPUs are built on the 10nm manufacturing process – the smaller the process the better the power and performance on a CPU. Intel has previously used the 10nm manufacturing process for their previous generation of Ice Lake chips, but for this generation Intel has moved the Willow Cove CPU and Intel Xe graphics architectures to a new 10nm SuperFin process technology which Intel says will be faster, with less power. 

How much faster are the new processors? Intel is throwing out numbers like ‘up to 2.7x faster content creation, more than 20% faster office productivity and more than 2x faster gaming plus streaming in real-world workflows over competitive products’ but it seems there’s a . 

Intel will be releasing a range of processors based on the Tiger Lake platform including Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 configurations . The range includes multiple configurations of Cores and Threads, with clock speeds up to 4.8GHz.

Intel EVO

As well as their new line of processors, Intel has also announced an update on Project Athena – their certification program aimed at ensuring you get a laptop that meets your needs. Called Intel Evo, the new certification has slightly higher requirements than Project Athena, Intel has outlined the requirements as this:

All Intel Evo platform designs are powered by 11th Gen Intel Core i7 or i5 processors with Intel Iris Xe graphics, feature best-in-class wireless and wired connectivity with Thunderbolt 4 and Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+), and deliver exceptional audio and display to make each experience premium.

Evo certification will also require laptops with the Evo badge to have ‘9 or more hours of real-world battery life on systems with FHD displays’ to ensure you get real all-day battery life. Laptops also need to have ‘Consistent responsiveness on battery’ which means they have to wake from sleep in less than a second, and support fast charging ‘with up to 4-hour charge in under 30 minutes on systems with FHD displays’.

Availability

The new 11th Gen Intel processors will be available in laptops later this year, with Intel expecting more than 150 designs based on the new architecture expected from Acer, Asus, Dell, Dynabook, HP, Lenovo, LG, MSI, Razer, Samsung and others.