Well, that’s a bummer! Back at CES, some serious performance promises were made regarding these new Intel Lakefield hybrid processors that were billed as the smallest x86 CPUs.
These are the company’s first 3D Feveros packaged chips.
Officially going by the name of ‘Intel Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology’, these chips employ the same modus operandi used by ARM processors. In that they have separate cores for heavier workloads, and low-powered cores for background tasks that are less intensive.
And they also stack two layers of DRAM on the CPU package alongside the two logic dies, which allows them to rid the need of external memory.
But the only problem is that they are not optimized for Windows 10X.
The main talking point when these processors were first unveiled was hardware-guided OS scheduling that would ensure that the operating system would run the applications on the most appropriate core, in order to maximize performance and conserve batter life.
In fact, when Lenovo showed off the stylish ThinkPad X1 Fold, it went on record that Windows 10X would include this scheduling.
However, Intel has now confirmed that Lakefield processors are optimized only for Windows 10, and not the upcoming variant of the OS. No reason has been provided for this change of heart, but this definitely is a bit of a letdown.
Perhaps it’s the fact that Microsoft needs more time to work on Windows 10X, or perhaps Intel figured it was better to optimize for the platform in its second-generation silicon.
But seeing as this is a new dawn for Intel, a little magic sauce here would have been so, so delicious!
