Intel is all set to release its eighth-generation Core CPUs, codenamed Coffee Lake, in the second half of 2017. The company confirmed at its Investor Day event last week that Coffee Lake will be based on a 14nm process like its predecessors Kaby Lake, Skylake, and Broadwell.

The 8th-gen chip marks Intel’s adoption of a new approach after its departure from a tick-tock strategy. Under the strategy, each tick was a die shrink and every tock was a fresh micro-architecture. Intel’s most recent model comprised Process, Architecture, Optimization, with Kaby Lake being the “Optimization” to Skylake’s “Architecture” and Broadwell’s “Process.” However, the upcoming launch of Coffee Lake on 14nm moves away from that model as it is earlier than the rumored launch window sometime in 2018 based on the product roadmaps that leaked in 2016.

Nonetheless, Coffee Lake promises a 15% boost in performance compared to Kaby Lake according to the SysMark Benchmark, though it is not clear whether that applies to mobile or desktop. At the moment, Intel is silent about the complete lineup of Coffee Lake chips. Nonetheless, the chip is supposed to ship with a six-core CPU as part of the i7 product range.

A more advanced lineup based on a new 10nm process, Intel’s Cannon Lake CPUs, will also launch in the future. Enterprise customers can expect to be the first to get their hands on the chips before consumers do.

Once Coffee Lake hits shelves, the chips will become a direct rival of AMD’s upcoming Ryzen CPUs due to launch in March. Ryzen will also include eight cores and 16 threads. The product lineup also features six and quad-core versions. AMD has yet to announce pricing for Ryzen.

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