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Intel have quietly unveiled their quad-core AMD hybrid Core i7 8809G processor… kinda

Intel AMD Mobile chip

The first hybrid Intel/AMD chip has appeared on Intel’s own website, showing their quad-core CPU with an AMD Radeon Vega M graphics component doing the visual grunt work. It’s popped up on a list of unlocked overclocking Intel processors, which is a good sign for anyone wanting to tweak the clocks off the Core Radeon lovechild.

Is it a graphics chip, is it a processor? Whatever you want to call it, you’re going to need one of the best gaming monitors to make it look its best.

At the moment the page is still live, though the link through to the CPU’s own product page is a dud and just leads to an ‘oops, something went wrong’ 404 placeholder. Chances are that as the big CES tech extravaganza unfolds over the next week or so that gets filled in and more info about Intel’s new chips filters out.

There’s not a whole lot more info in the list about the new Core i7 8809G processor, but it does display a base clockspeed of 3.1GHz and the fact it’s only sporting four cores and eight threads. That chimes with the original rumours about the CPU core being based on the older Kaby Lake architecture as opposed to the latest six-core Intel Coffee Lake chips.

Intel AMD Mobile chip

The total TDP for the package, including both CPU and GPU components, is listed as 100W. Given the lower clockspeed and limited core-count, it looks like we’re talking about a 45W CPU part with the rest of the TDP headroom given over to the Radeon graphics core and however much HBM2 it has attached to it.

Interestingly, Intel have listed the Core i7 8809G along with their overclockable Skylake-X, Kaby Lake-X, and Coffee Lake desktop CPUs. From the renders Intel released when they first started talking officially about the product it’s always looked like a mobile release, though this could suggest something different. We’d still expect the chip to be a soldered-on part and not a socketed CPU, so if it does arrive on the desktop don’t expect to be dropping it into a Z370 board – it’s more likely going to appear in a new NUC, Gigabyte BRIX, or Zotac ZBOX design.

Intel AMD Mobile chip shrink

Intel haven’t announced any of their high-end, overclockable laptop chips yet, so it’s possible they will be joining this G-series CPU (do we call it an APU yet?) at some point in the very near future.

Linked to this quiet official unveiling are rumours about a Core i7 8705G and i7 8706G parts too, with different clockspeeds and numbers of Vega GCN cores inside. The particular GPU bolted onto this 8809G part is denoted as Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics, which looks suspiciously like mobile nomenclature, though what the ‘GH’ stands for is anyone’s guess. It might indicate high and low levels of Vega cores as there are noises about a Vega M GL too.

There is speculation this top Kaby Lake-G chip could sport up to 24 compute units, which would give it 1,536 GCN cores. In some sort of bizarre semi-competition the red team are also predicted to be releasing an AMD Raven Ridge APU with a heady 28 CUs, putting it almost on par with a Radeon RX 570.

It’s only the first fleeting moments of January and already this year could be starting out with some heady technological competition. What’s your money on coming out in front, Kaby Lake-G or Raven Ridge?