Today at CES, Intel's focus was mostly on its S-series processors - which are for desktop PCs - and H-series CPUs - which are mostly for gaming laptops and mobile workstations. It also offered up some details of the new generation of U-series chips, along with the all-new P-series. As the firm has detailed in the past, the all-new P-series is for powerful ultrabooks, coming in at 28W. The U-series will once again come in two tiers; UP3 at 15W and UP4 at 9W.

They all use Intel's new hybrid technology, including big P-cores (performance cores) and little E-cores (efficiency cores). The P-cores handle the tasks that require the most power, while the E-cores can handle the rest, such as background tasks. It uses Intel Thread Director to know which tasks are best for which cores.

While Intel has offered 28W SKUs of its U-series before, it's never had an entire tier dedicated to it. That's where the new P-series comes in, and you're going to see it in a lot of laptops that would have traditionally had regular 15W U-series chips. In telling us the SKUs, it tells us a lot about the processors themselves.

Processor Number

Processor Cores

Processor Threads

Performance Cores

Efficient Cores

L3 Cache

Max Turbo Frequency (P-cores)

Max Turbo Frequency (E-cores)

Base Frequency (P-cores)

Base Frequency (E-cores)

Processor Graphics

Max Graphics Frequency

Processor Base Power

Max Turbo Power

Intel vPro

Core i7-1280P

14C

20T

6P

8E

24MB

4.8GHz

3.6GHz

1.8GHz

1.3GHz

96EU

1.45GHz

28W

64W

Enterprise

Core i7-1270P

12C

16T

4P

8E

18MB

4.8GHz

3.5GHz

2.2GHz

1.6GHz

96EU

1.4GHz

28W

64W

Enterprise

Core i7-1260P

12C

16T

4P

8E

18MB

4.7GHz

3.4GHz

2.1GHz

1.5GHz

96EU

1.4GHz

28W

64W

Essentials

Core i5-1250P

12C

16T

4P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.7GHz

1.2GHz

80EU

1.4GHz

28W

64W

Enterprise

Core i5-1240P

12C

16T

4P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.7GHz

1.2GHz

80EU

1.3GHz

28W

64W

Essentials

Core i3-1220P

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.5GHz

1.1GHz

64EU

1.1GHz

28W

64W

As you can see, these are actually pretty beefy chips, so you're going to see a lot of thin and light machines that are made for performance. At best, they'll have 14 cores, something we've never seen at this tier, with six performance cores. The Core i7-1280P has a max turbo frequency of 4.8GHz in the P-cores, which is pretty solid.

Perhaps more interesting is the U-series. The traditional U-series, now referred to as UP3, is what you've historically seen in premium ultrabooks like the Dell XPS 13, HP Spectre x360 13, Surface Laptop, Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and so on.

Processor Number

Processor Cores

Processor Threads

Performance Cores

Efficient Cores

L3 Cache

Max Turbo Frequency (P-cores)

Max Turbo Frequency (E-cores)

Base Frequency (P-cores)

Base Frequency (E-cores)

Processor Graphics

Max Graphics Frequency

Processor Base Power

Max Turbo Power

Intel vPro

Core i7-1265U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.8GHz

3.6GHz

1.8GHz

1.3GHz

96EU

1.25GHz

15W

55W

Enterprise

Core i7-1255U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.7GHz

3.5GHz

1.7GHz

1.2GHz

96EU

1.25GHz

15W

55W

Essentials

Core i5-1245U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.6GHz

1.2GHz

80EU

1.2GHz

15W

55W

Enterprise

Core i5-1235U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.3GHz

0.9GHz

80EU

1.2GHz

15W

55W

Essentials

Core i3-1215U

6C

8T

2P

4E

10MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.2GHz

0.9GHz

64EU

1.1GHz

15W

55W

Pentium 8505

5C

6T

1P

4E

8MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.2GHz

0.9GHz

48EU

1.1GHz

15W

55W

Celeron 7305

5C

6T

1P

4E

8MB

1.1GHz

0.9GHz

48EU

1.1GHz

15W

55W

What's really interesting about the UP3 chips is that they only have two performance cores. Historically, these chips have been quad-core, except for a single 10th-gen SKU that had six cores. Keep in mind that while Intel released the tables about SKUs, it didn't say anything else about these chips, so we don't know the usual benchmarks and performance comparisons that it usually talks about.

You can be pretty sure, however, of two things. For one thing, Intel is planning to outperform the previous generation. The other is that it's planning to outperform AMD. How it's planning to do so is unclear. A lot of the new laptops we're seeing that would historically use UP3 processors are getting the new P-series chips. Intel is also targeting Apple's M1, so we'll have to learn more than this is all formally announced.

Also, note that there's a Pentium and a Celeron on there, both of which are penta-core. Having one performance core and four efficiency cores is reminiscent of Lakefield, Intel's first attempt at hybrid processors.

Finally, we have UP4, which is the successor to Y-series. It's made for very thin and light devices, which can even be fanless. With these, the core counts are the same, but everything is turned down to 9W instead of 15W.

Processor Number

Processor Cores

Processor Threads

Performance Cores

Efficient Cores

L3 Cache

Max Turbo Frequency (P-cores)

Max Turbo Frequency (E-cores)

Base Frequency (P-cores)

Base Frequency (E-cores)

Processor Graphics

Max Graphics Frequency

Processor Base Power

Max Turbo Power

Intel vPro

Core i7-1260U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.7GHz

3.5GHz

1.1GHz

0.8GHz

96EU

0.95GHz

9W

29W

Enterprise

Core i7-1250U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.7GHz

3.5GHz

1.1GHz

0.8GHz

96EU

0.95GHz

9W

29W

Essentials

Core i5-1240U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1.1GHz

0.8GHz

80EU

0.9GHz

9W

29W

Enterprise

Core i5-1230U

10C

12T

2P

8E

12MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1GHz

0.7GHz

80EU

0.85GHz

9W

29W

Essentials

Core i3-1210U

6C

8T

2P

4E

10MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1GHz

0.7GHz

64EU

0.85GHz

9W

29W

Pentium 8500

5C

6T

1P

4E

8MB

4.4GHz

3.3GHz

1GHz

0.7GHz

48EU

0.8GHz

9W

29W

Celeron 7300

5C

6T

1P

4E

8MB

1GHz

0.7GHz

48EU

0.8GHz

9W

29W

Intel's focus today was very much on its new desktop and H-series SKUs. A formal announcement is set to arrive this spring, which could mean anything from Mobile World Congress to Computex. Still, many of the laptops being announced today use these chips. That includes Dell's XPS 13 Plus, HP's Elite Dragonfly, and much more.