The wait for Intel's 9th gen mobile Core CPUs for laptops is almost over

Without getting into any of the nitty-gritty details, Intel confirmed at GDC 2019 that it's launching mobile versions of its 9th generation H-series Core processors during the second quarter. That translates into before July.

Unfortunately, Intel did not divulge any specific models or accompanying details, such as clockspeeds, cache arrangements, or anything else. However, the company is clearly targeting gaming laptops and other high-performance systems.

"This portfolio of high-performance mobile processors will power the ultimate laptops for gamers and creators. It has the premium performance gamers need to play and compete with seamless AAA game play while also recording and streaming without compromise," Intel says.

That's not surprising, since the Core i9 series on desktop are powerful chips. About the only thing Intel was willing to divulge is the manufacturing process—an spokesperson told PCWorld that the Core i9 H-series is based on its older 14nm Coffee Lake architecture.

While not confirmed, our expectation is that some of these new parts will be 8-core/16-thread processors. This expectation comes by way of a logical evolution of Intel's mobile processors, and also from an official document that Intel had previously posted. The references to the new parts have since been removed, but as our friends at AnandTech covered last month, two of the upcoming SKUs include the Core i9-9980HK and Core i9-9880H.

The 9th Gen CPUs primarily differ from 8th Gen in that they support Wi-Fi 6 connectivity (formerly 802.11ax), with speeds of more than 1Gbps possible. Intel will also be pushing better battery life with its new mobile processors. Of course, that likely goes out the window when playing a game, and there's only so much Intel can squeeze out of Coffee Lake. But, we'll see.