Intel core i3 8121u shows the shortcomings of the 10nm intel

Intel's 10nm manufacturing process still does not offer good performance, so the company will only offer a small number of chips made with this node, this situation will continue until enough functional chips can be manufactured per silicon wafer. The Core i3 8121U will be the first Intel processor manufactured at 10nm, a model that has been confirmed by Intel itself.

Intel confirms the Core i3-8121U Cannon Lake without integrated graphics

Lenovo Ideapad 330 is the first laptop to hit the market with an Intel 10nm processor, the Core i3 8121U. At the moment it is only shipped in China due to the low availability of these advanced processors. It is strange that Intel has launched the Core i3 8121U without making noise, the reason is simple, since it is a dual-core model and 15W TDP, which lacks an iGPU component, and which offers users little clock speeds. Impressive starting at 2.2GHz and boosting up to 3.2GHz.

We recommend reading our post on Intel confirms the existence of the Z390 for Coffee Lake and Cannon Lake

Full specifications of the new i3 8121U processor are available from Intel Ark, the company's product database, marked without "Recommended Customer Price", which probably means these processors ship at an incredibly low price. OEMs must combine this product with a dedicated graphics chip, making the product unusable as a standalone CPU without the help of Radeon or Geforce graphics.

Manufactured at 14nm, the Kaby Lake-based i3 8130U achieves a TDP of 15W (configurable to 10W), offering base / boost clock speeds of 2.2GHz and 3.4GHz with integrated graphics, highlighting the shortcomings of the 10nm manufacturing from Intel. Intel's 10nm have a long way to mature to offer a noticeable improvement over its current 14nm.