Coffee Lake
Coffee Lake is Intel's codename for the second 14 nm process node refinement following Broadwell, Skylake, and Kaby Lake. The integrated graphics on Coffee Lake chips allow support for DP 1.2 to HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 connectivity. Coffee Lake natively supports DDR4-2666 MHz memory in dual channel mode when used with Xeon, Core i5, i7 and i9 CPUs, DDR4-2400 MHz memory in dual channel mode when used with Celeron, Pentium, and Core i3 CPUs, and LPDDR3-2133 MHz memory when used with mobile CPUs.
Desktop Coffee Lake CPUs introduce major changes in Intel's Core CPUs nomenclature, in that i5 and i7 CPUs feature six cores. Core i3 CPUs, having four cores and dropping hyper-threading for the first time, received a change as well. The 9th generation desktop CPU release in October 2018 further changed the nomenclature, with Core i7 moving to 8 cores and dropping hyper-threading for the first time, and new mainstream desktop Core i9 processors being released, featuring 8 cores with hyper-threading.
The 8th gen chips were released on October 5, 2017. Coffee Lake is used in conjunction with the 300-series chipset, and officially does not work with the 100- and 200-series chipset motherboards. Although desktop Coffee Lake processors use the same physical LGA 1151 socket as Skylake and Kaby Lake, the pinout is electrically incompatible with these older processors and motherboards.
On April 2, 2018, Intel released additional desktop Core i3, i5, i7, Pentium Gold, Celeron CPUs, the first six-core Core i7 and i9 mobile CPUs, hyper-threaded four-core Core i5 mobile CPUs, and the first Coffee Lake ultra-power CPUs with Intel Iris Plus graphics.
On June 8, 2018, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Intel 8086 CPU architecture, Intel released the i7-8086K as a limited edition CPU, a renumbered and slightly higher clocked batch of the i7-8700K dies.
On October 8, 2018, Intel launched 9th generation Coffee Lake Refresh CPUs with up to eight cores. To avoid running into thermal problems at high clock speeds, Intel soldered the integrated heat spreader to the CPU die instead of using thermal paste as on the Coffee Lake processors.
History
Its development was led by Intel Israel's processor design team in Haifa, Israel, as an optimization of Kaby Lake. Intel first launched its 8th Generation Intel Core family processors in August 2017. While with the release of the new 8th Gen Intel Core i9 processor in 2018, Intel said it would be the highest-performance laptop processor Intel has ever built.Features
Coffee Lake CPUs are built using the second refinement of Intel's 14 nm process. It features increased transistor gate pitch for a lower current density and higher leakage transistors that allows higher peak power and higher frequency at the expense of die area and idle power.Coffee Lake marks a shift in the number of cores for Intel's mainstream desktop processors, the first such update for the previous ten-year history of Intel Core CPUs. In the 8th generation, mainstream desktop i7 CPUs feature six cores and 12 threads, i5 CPUs feature six single-threaded cores and i3 CPUs feature four single-threaded cores.
9th generation
For the 9th generation, the Intel Core i9 branding made its debut on the mainstream desktop, describing CPUs with 8 cores and 16 threads. 9th generation i7s feature 8 single-threaded cores, marking the first time desktop Core i7s have not featured Intel's Hyper-threading technology, although the 9th generation Core i7 mobile CPUs do support hyperthreading and have 6 cores just like 8th gen mobile chips. 9th generation i5 CPUs feature six single-threaded cores, just like their 8th generation predecessors.The ninth generation Core i series includes hardware fixes for Meltdown V3 and L1 Terminal Fault.
Chipsets
The 300 series chipsets, while using physically identical LGA 1151 socket to the 100 and 200 series chipsets, are officially only compatible with Coffee Lake CPUs, meaning that older motherboards do not officially support Coffee Lake processors, and 300 series motherboards do not officially support Skylake or Kaby Lake processors.The enthusiast Z370, launched alongside the first Coffee Lake CPUs in October 2017, was the only officially supported chipset for these mainstream CPUs. When the full lineup of CPUs was revealed in April 2018, it was then accompanied by the lower-end H310, B360, H370 and Q370 chipsets for home and business users. The Z390 chipset was launched alongside the release of the 9th generation CPUs, supporting all 8th and 9th generation mainstream desktop parts. A B365 chipset was added later on.
9th generation XEONs need motherboards with chipset C246.
Architecture changes compared with Kaby Lake
Coffee Lake features largely the same CPU core and performance per MHz as Skylake/Kaby Lake. Features specific to Coffee Lake include:- Increased core count to six cores on Core i5 and 8th generation i7 parts; Core i3 is now a quad-core brand. 9th generation i7 and i9 parts feature eight cores.
- Increased L3 cache in accordance to the number of threads
- Increased turbo clock speeds across i5 and i7 CPUs models
- Increased iGPU clock speeds by 50 MHz and rebranded it UHD
- DDR4 memory support updated for 2666 MHz and 2400 MHz ; DDR3 memory is no longer supported on LGA1151 parts, unless using with H310C chipset
- 300 series chipset on the second revision of socket LGA 1151
- Support for CNVi
Kaby Lake Refresh vs. Coffee Lake
Additional core resources in mid-range eighth-generation Coffee Lake desktop chips offer significant gains in performance versus previous seventh-generation Intel CPUs in multi-threaded workloads. The architecture delivers no IPC difference over Skylake or Kaby Lake, however.
List of 8th generation Coffee Lake processors
Desktop processors (Coffee Lake S)
These processors mark the first time that Intel has released mainstream consumer CPUs that support up to 128GB RAM.Workstation processors (Coffee Lake S)
Mobile processors (Coffee Lake H & Coffee Lake U)
List of 9th generation Coffee Lake processors (Coffee Lake Refresh)
Desktop processors
The first 9th generation Coffee Lake CPUs were released in the fourth quarter of 2018. They include hardware mitigations against certain Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities.Main differences from 8th generation :
- Core i7 parts contain 8/8 cores/threads compared to 6/12 in 8th generation Core i7 parts
- Core i3 parts are equipped with Turbo Boost technology
The Intel Core i9-9900KS CPU, released at the end of October, 2019, features a limited one year warranty both for box and tray versions due to "its limited volume".
Workstation processors
Coffee Lake-W CPUs require C242 or C246 chipset| Processor branding | Model | Cores | Base clock rate | Max. Turbo clock rate | GPU | Smart cache | TDP | Memory support | Price |
| Xeon E | 8 | 3.7 GHz | 5.0 GHz | UHD P630 | 16 MiB | 95 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $539 | |
| Xeon E | 8 | 3.4 GHz | 5.0 GHz | UHD P630 | 16 MiB | 80 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $494 | |
| Xeon E | 6 | 4.0 GHz | 4.9 GHz | UHD P630 | 12 MiB | 95 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $450 | |
| Xeon E | 6 | 3.8 GHz | 4.9 GHz | UHD P630 | 12 MiB | 80 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $362 | |
| Xeon E | 6 | 3.6 GHz | 4.8 GHz | UHD P630 | 12 MiB | 80 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $311 | |
| Xeon E | 6 | 3.4 GHz | 4.8 GHz | N/A | 12 MiB | 80 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $284 | |
| Xeon E | 6 | 3.4 GHz | 4.7 GHz | UHD P630 | 12 MiB | 80 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $255 | |
| Xeon E | 4 | 4.0 GHz | 4.9 GHz | UHD P630 | 8 MiB | 83 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $328 | |
| Xeon E | 4 | 3.8 GHz | 4.8 GHz | UHD P630 | 8 MiB | 71 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $272 | |
| Xeon E | 4 | 3.6 GHz | 4.8 GHz | N/A | 8 MiB | 71 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $250 | |
| Xeon E | 4 | 3.5 GHz | 4.7 GHz | UHD P630 | 8 MiB | 71 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $213 | |
| Xeon E | 4 | 3.4 GHz | 4.6 GHz | N/A | 8 MiB | 71 W | DDR4-2666 2-channel up to 128 GiB with ECC | $193 |