Intel confirms that Rocket Lake desktop processors will get up to eight cores

Intel has released some technical details of the upcoming Rocket Lake generation of desktop processors. The processors will receive up to eight cores of the Cypress Cove generation, which promises IPC improvements with ‘double digits’.

According to Intel, Rocket Lake-S is built around the Ice Lake architecture and the Tiger Lake architecture for graphics. Intel does not specify the process by which the chips were produced. Previous rumors spoke of a backport to the 14nm process of the Willow Cove cores that Intel uses in its 10nm Tiger Lake laptop processors, and the current announcement at least partly confirms that.

Intel also makes clear that Rocket Lake-S will consist of processors with a maximum of eight cores and sixteen threads, whereas predecessor Comet Lake-S had a maximum of ten cores and twenty threads. Intel does promise that the IPC improvements compared to that generation are in the double digits in percentage terms, without giving an exact number.

Rocket Lake-S also offers up to twenty PCIe 4.0 lanes and integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support. The Intel UHD GPU is based on Intel’s new Xe architecture, which Intel already uses for Tiger Lake mobile chips. The first Rocket Lake-S processors should be released in the first quarter of 2021.

Overview of current and upcoming Intel desktop CPUs, based on confirmed and leaked details and rumors