The best Intel Comet Lake Us for gamers won't have graphics

In 2018, F-series Us were released for Intel Comet Lake.

Informatica Cero (via Videocardz) recently released a slide from what looks like the same presentation that gave us the (unconfirmed) names, as well as core and thread counts, of Comet Lake Us. In this latest slide, various specs are listed alongside Intel F-series Us. The six iGPU-less Us that are listed run from the i9-10900KF all the way down to the i5-10400F.

Intel Coffee Lake F-series processors originally ran slightly cheaper than their non-F counterparts, and prices were dropped even lower in October 2019. Intel can charge less for these chips because they're essentially K-series rejects – standard Coffee Lake (or, soon, Comet Lake) Us whose integrated graphics have suffered manufacturing defects.

The leaked slide shows the details of six of Intel's Comet Lake F-series Us, each with the same core configuration and clock speed as its counterpart K-series processor.

(The 'K' suffix indicates these chips are unlocked and available to be overclocked.)

Every batch of Us will yield some small amount of Us with defective silicon, from dodgy processor cores to botched integrated graphics. It makes sense for Intel to disable the defective integrated graphics on these processors and sell them at a reduced cost – it's better than chucking them out, at least. It makes Intel some more money, and it lets us spend less money on what is, for gaming PCs, just as good of a U.

And let's face it, the primary market for mid to high-end Intel Us of any generation is the humble PC gamer. And what does (almost) every PC gamer have in their machine? A discrete graphics card. This makes F-series cards much more alluring for many people than their non-F counterparts. If you have a discrete GPU, You get the same performance for less cost with no drawbacks.

OEMs and system builders will be keen to use these chips to lower upfront costs and pip their competition, too.

There are, ittedly, uses for integrated graphics in gaming even when you have a discrete GPU. For instance, streamers occasionally use Intel Quick Sync to encode their videos using onboard graphics. These uses are few and far between, however, and for most gamers with a discrete GPU, the lack of integrated graphics will go unnoticed.

So, if this leaked presentation slide is legitimate, we can look forward to some slightly cheaper Intel Comet Lake options which offer the same performance as its full price chips. For most of us gamers, these Us will be a nice way to save a few pennies on our new Comet Lake Us for no practical cost. God bless imperfect yields and manufacturing defects.