Leaked slides suggest that Intel will keep its promise and offer a 5.3GHz Comet Lake H processor next week.

The slides, purportedly Intel marketing materials and posted on Twitter (via VideoCardz), suggest that Intel's 10th generation Comet Lake processors (at least the high-end processors with 45W TDP for gaming laptops) will reach new heights in terms of clock The Core i9 10980HK will be the top chip of the generation coming to market with a base clock of 2.4GHz and Thermal Velocity Boost clock of 5.3GHz across its eight cores.

While this sounds pretty exciting on paper, thanks to Intel's new and improved Thermal Velocity Boost, the maximum turbo frequency will be a bit lower than the advertised clock. This is no easy feat. [But with today's gaming laptops already featuring the Core i9 9980HK, whose eight cores are rated at 2.4 GHz base and 5.0 GHz Max Turbo boost, the hype train will take a detour into the valley of lukewarm interest.

Unlike the desktop-oriented Comet Lake, the Comet Lake H processor is expected to be the top Core i9 CPU with 10 cores and 20 threads, which will reportedly be announced on April 30, maxing out at the aforementioned 8 cores and 16 threads.

The really exciting architectural improvements are in ultra-low power chips like 10nm Intel Ice Lake and Tiger Lake. Sure, they still can't deliver the same gaming performance as their 14nm brethren, but there is something new and exciting about the brand new cores driving them (Sunny Cove and Willow Cove, respectively).

Rumor has it that some of these improvements will be ported to desktop chips with Intel Rocket Lake, but nothing is confirmed yet. When (if) that day comes, the mobile H-series is likely to see quite a shakeup.

According to recent whispers, Intel's Comet Lake H-series processors are expected to be announced on April 2, sometimes packaged with brand new Nvidia Super GPU silicon. Intel's 10th generation doesn't look that exciting on its own, but perhaps the combination of a new CPU, a new GPU, and a snazzy chassis will be enough to entice some of us to buy one.