Intel Core i7-10810U: ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 listing reveals new Comet Lake hexa-core CPU with vPro

When Lenovo announced the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 8 at CES, many people were confused: Why does this 2020 ThinkPad not feature Intel's 10 nm Ice Lake CPUs? After all, the 10 nm Ice Lake chips are more power efficient and more powerful in terms of GPU performance as well compared to the 14 nm Comet Lake parts.

The reason is pretty simple: Among the key differences between consumer laptops and business laptops like Lenovo ThinkPads are security and manageability features that are important for corporate customers. One of those is Intel vPro – a feature that is simply not available with Ice Lake CPUs and not planned for future availability. However, vPro variations of Comet Lake are not available yet either.

But that is about to change. The product page of the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2020 reveals a new Comet Lake U processor, the Intel Core i7-10810U. This 14 nm processor appears to be very closely related to the  already existing Intel Core i7-10710U. Both have six CPU cores and even exactly the same clock-rates, if Lenovo's listing is to be believed: 1.1 GHz base clock, 4.7 GHz turbo clock. The only difference seems to be the vPro feature.

When exactly this processor will be available is unknown as of now. However, it can be assumed that it will be available as soon as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is shipping. When that happens, we can expect many other business laptops to ship with these CPUs as well. It appears that brands like Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes and HP EliteBooks will be stuck on 14 nm CPUs for at least until 2021.

ThinPad X1 Carbon Gen 7 on sale now at Amazon