Like Renoir-H, Intel Comet Lake-H will lack an integrated Thunderbolt 3 controller

Intel just made official its direct successor to the 9th gen Coffee Lake-H series with 10th gen Comet Lake-H. The chipmaker is promising single-core Turbo Boost clock rates faster than 5 GHz, faster DDR4-2933 memory support, and octa-core Core i7 options to better compete against the 7 nm octa-core Ryzen 7 4800H. The unlocked Core i9-10980HK will be the crown of the series distinguished by its 5.3 GHz maximum single-core clock rate compared to "only" 5.0 GHz on the last generation Core i9-9980HK.

However, don't expect Comet Lake-H to support any major new hardware features over Coffee Lake-H since both are nearly identical architecturally. An integrated Thunderbolt 3 controller, for example, continues to be absent in contrast to the integrated controller on the 10th gen Ice Lake-U series. This puts the onus on OEMs to continue adding external Thunderbolt 3 controllers onto their Comet Lake-H laptops which will occupy additional motherboard space and increase costs. Otherwise, OEMs can choose to simply forego the dedicated Thunderbolt 3 controller to save on costs.

Intel says the new Comet Lake-H chips will be able to support up to two controllers for a total of four Thunderbolt 3 ports should OEMs decide to go that route. Though a novel feature, we can't imagine many manufacturers wanting to implement so many Thunderbolt 3 ports in the first place.

Gaming laptops sporting the new 10th gen Intel CPUs are expected to begin shipping later this month from Gigabyte, MSI, and Asus with more to follow.