Intel designed an Apple-exclusive Core i9-10910 10-core processor for its new-generation iMac, with an interesting set of specs. The chip has a base frequency of 3.60 GHz - much higher than the 2.90 GHz of the i9-10900 - but a lower max boost frequency of 5.00 GHz (against 5.20 GHz TVB max of the i9-10900). The TDP of the new chip is rumored to be higher, at 95 W, giving its boosting algorithm more breathing room. Leakbench, a twitter handle that tracks interesting submissions to the Geekbench online database, fished out one of the first Geekbench 5 submissions of the i9-10910.

The i9-10910 serves up 6.9% higher single-threaded performance than the i9-10900. It however, falls behind the i9-10900 in multi-threaded performance by 9.6%. These results as surprising. Normally, we'd expect the i9-10910 to have a lower single-threaded performance and higher multi-threaded performance. As its max boost frequency is lower, and the i9-10900 is able to run single-threaded workloads on its favored cores at frequencies of up to 5.20 GHz (as opposed to 5.00 GHz on the i9-10910). On the other hand, with a higher TDP (higher PL1), the i9-10910 has more power budget for its cores to sustain higher boost states, which should give it a slight edge over the i9-10900 in multi-threaded performance. The raison d'être of the i9-10910 appears to be in giving Apple a variation of the 10-core "Comet Lake" die that macOS can make the most of, as it probably lacks optimization for Turbo Boost Max 3.0 and Thermal Velocity Boost.

Intel is readying an Apple-exclusive Core i9-10910 desktop processor which will feature in an upcoming, unannounced iMac / iMac Pro product, according to a spot by _rogame. The i9-10910 sits between the i9-10900 and the unlocked i9-10900K that's available in the retail market. It has an interesting set of clock speeds. Its nominal clock speeds is significantly higher than the i9-10900, at 3.60 GHz, compared to 2.90 GHz of the i9-10900; however, its max Turbo Boost frequency is lower, at 4.70 GHz, according to Tom's Hardware, compared to 5.00 GHz on the i9-10900. Perhaps 4.70 GHz is the all-core TVB max frequency, a 100 MHz increase over the 4.60 GHz of the i9-10900. Also, its TDP is rated at 95 W (for a locked chip), higher than the 65 W of the i9-10900, but lower than the 125 W of the i9-10900K.

The i9-10910 is a 10-core/20-thread processor, just like the i9-10900, and features 20 MB of shared L3 cache, along with a Gen 9.5 UHD 630 integrated graphics. In related news, the unreleased iMac that was used in this Geekbench run also sports a Radeon RX 5300 discrete graphics solution, featuring 20 RDNA compute units (compared to 24 on the Radeon Pro 5500M), amounting to 1,280 stream processors; up to 1.65 GHz engine clocks, and 4 GB of an unknown memory type. It will be interesting to see if the i9-10910 remains Apple-exclusive after the Ryzen 9 3900XT launches next week.