Intel Comet Lake-S has not even launched yet, but details on two generations ahead are already leaking.
Skylake to go on retirement
Intel Rocket Lake-S
Intel’s 11th Gen Core is now rumored to offer up to 8-cores, unlike 10th Gen Core which will feature up to 10-cores. This is likely the most confusing part about Rocket Lake-S. Why would Intel launch a next-generation architecture with fewer cores? Is the new core design so power-efficient that it will surpass Skylake based cores regardless? That is hard to say, but it is believed that Rocket Lake-S is just a feature upgrade for Comet Lake-S.
The next-generation will support PCIe 4.0, as most high-end Z490 motherboards are now confirmed by their manufacturers to support the newer standard. Gigabyte has confirmed this, despite Intel’s intentions to keep this ‘a secret’.
At PTT forums, power levels are also mentioned for the new series. It is expected that they will be similar to Comet Lake-S. After all, they launch on the same platform (Intel 400 motherboard series).
The CPUs will be divided into 95W, 80W, and 65W variants. There is no mention of 35W SKUs.
| Intel Rocket Lake-S Power Levels | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TDP / PL1 | PL2 | PL1/PL2 difference | Tau | |
| Rocket Lake-S (8c, 6c) | 95 W. | 215/173 W. | 56 s | |
| Rocket Lake-S (8c, 6c, 4c) | 80 W. | 251/191/146 W. | 28 s | |
| Rocket Lake-S (8c, 6c, 4c) | 65 W. | 251/177/128 W. | 28 s | |
| Intel Core i9-10900K | 125 W. | 250 W. | + 100% | 56 s |
| Intel Core i7-10700K | 125 W. | 229 W. | +83.2% | 56 s |
| Intel Core i5-10600K | 125 W. | 182 W. | +45.6% | 56 s |
| Intel Core i9-9900KS | 127 W. | 159 W. | + 25.2% | 28 s |
| Intel Core i9-9900K | 95 W. | 119 W. | + 25.3% | 28 s |
Table compiled by HardwareLuxx
Our exclusive leak confirming new core design
PTT Forums (sharkbay) comments
Intel Alder Lake-S
Intel Alder Lake-S (what we call a 12th Gen Core, although it’s not confirmed), will launch on a new LGA1700 socket. This is Intel’s proper architecture refresh, the first actual upgrade in years.
Not only it will launch on a smaller node, which should itself be a huge IPC upgrade, even over Rocket Lake-S, but it will also support PCIe Gen 4 and DDR5, as the latest leak from PTT suggests. This was, in fact, rumored for a while, but now even the memory speeds are mentioned. Intel’s Alder Lake-S is expected to support DDR4 at 4800 GT/s but only with one 1DPC (one DIMM per channel or interchangeable with one single-rank DIMM per channel). The speed will decrease to 4000 GT/s if 2DPC are used (that’s two DIMMs per channel or one dual-rank DIMM per channel).
| INTEL Mainstream CPU Series Specs | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz.com | Coffee Lake-S | Comet Lake-S | Rocket Lake-S | Alder Lake-S | Meteor Lake-S |
| Launch Year | 2018 | 2020 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022-2023 |
| Fabrication Node | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm | ? | ? |
| Microarchitecture | Skylake | Skylake | Willow Cove (?) | Golden Cove + Gracemont | ? |
| Max Core Count | up to 8 cores | up to 10 cores | up to 8 cores | up to 16 (8 BIG + 8 SMALL) | ? |
| Socket | LGA1151 | LGA1200 | LGA1200 | LGA1700 (?) | LGA1700 |
| Memory Support | DDR4 | DDR4 | DDR4 | DDR5 | DDR5 |
| PCIe Gen | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 4.0 |
| Intel Core Series | 8th/9th Gen Core-S | 10th Gen Core-S | 11th Gen Core-S (?) | 12th Gen Core-S (?) | ? |
| Motherboard Chipsets | Intel 300 (eg. Z390) | Intel 400 (eg. Z490) | Intel 500 (Z590) | Intel 600 (eg. Z690) (?) | ? |
Source: PTT Online via TechPowerUP, HardwareLuxx, @MiebuW, @chiakokhua
