Late last year, Intel announced it’s partnership with AMD to build a high-performance processor with discrete graphics to power thinner devices without compromising much of the power that you get on less-portable devices. Just ahead of CES, one of Intel’s websites leaked some new details of what’s expected to be the company’s biggest reveal at CES this year.

The new quad-core processor, Core i7-8809G, comes with AMD’s custom built Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics. The processor will be clocked at 3.1GHz out of the box, but you’ll likely be able to turbo boost it to up to 4.1GHz. Intel has packed 8MB of level 3 cache on the processor, which sits just between 2016’s Kaby Lake processors and last year’s Coffee Lake processors. The i7-8809G is also expected to pack high bandwidth memory (4GB HMB2, running at 800 MHz) that will leverage Intel’s EMIB tech to connect to AMD’s Radeon discrete GPU, allegedly boasting 24 compute units running at 1190MHz. Some of these specs are just rumours for now, so take them with a grain of salt as usual.

Intel will still offer a variant of the new i7-8809G with its own HD Graphics 630 GPU, but you will obviously want to get the Radeon variant for the superior performance.

Intel’s upcoming high-performance processor does seem to pack a lot of punch for such a thin profile. But as AnandTech notes, the i7-8809G is more of a 7th gen processor due to having only 4 cores and the older branding for Intel’s HD graphics, despite the fact that Intel will be marketing it as an 8th gen processor.

Still, this is likely just the beginning for Intel. Days after announcing its partnership with AMD, AMD’s Chief Architect joined Intel to spearhead the CPU maker’s efforts to build its own high-end discrete GPUs as part of the new Core and Visual Computing Group. Put simply, more such processors–likely built by Intel themselves–will follow in the coming years.

Tagged with AMD, Coffee Lake, Intel, Radeon