Intel Confirms Rocket Lake on Desktop for Q1 2021, with PCIe 4.0
by Dr. Ian Cutress on October 7, 2020 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- PCIe 4.0
- Z490
- Rocket Lake
In a blog post on Medium today, Intel’s John Bonini has confirmed that the company will be launching its next-generation desktop platform in Q1 2021. This is confirmed as Rocket Lake, presumably under Intel’s 11th Gen Core branding, and will feature PCIe 4.0 support. After several months (and Z490 motherboards) mentioning Rocket Lake and PCIe 4.0 support, this note from Intel is the primary source that confirms it all.
The blog post doesn’t go into any further detail about Rocket Lake. From our side of the fence, we assume this is another 14nm processor, with questions as to whether it is built upon the same Skylake architecture as the previous five generations of 14nm, or is a back-port of Intel’s latest Cove microarchitecture designs. Add in PCIe 4.0 support rather than PCIe 3.0 - there’s no specific indication at this time that there will be an increase in PCIe lane counts from the CPU, although that has been an idea that has been floated. Some motherboards, such as the ASRock Z490 Aqua, seem to have been built with the idea of a PCIe 4.0 specific storage M.2 slot, which when in use makes the PCIe 3.0 slot no longer accessible.
It is notable in the blog that John Bonini (VP/GM for Intel’s Desktop/Workstation/Gaming) cites high processor frequencies as a key metric for high performance in games and popular applications, mentioning Intel’s various Turbo Boost technologies. In the same paragraph, he then cites overclocking Intel’s processors to 7 GHz, failing to mention that this sort of overclocking isn’t done for the sake of gaming or workflow. The blog post also seems to bounce between talking about enthusiast gamers on the bleeding edge and squeezing out every bit of performance at the top-end, to then mentioning casual gamers on mobile graphics; it’s comes across as erratic and a bit bipolar. Note that this blog post is also posted on Medium, rather than Intel’s own website, for whatever reason, and also seems to change font size mid-paragraph in the version we were sent.
The reason why this blog post is being today, in my opinion, is two-fold. Firstly, recent unconfirmed leaks regarding Intel’s roadmap has placed the next generation of desktop processor firmly into that Q1/Q2 crossover in 2021. By coming out and confirming a Q1 launch window, Intel is at least putting those rumors to bed. The second reason is down to what the competition is announcing: AMD has a Zen3 related presentation on October 8th, and so with Intel’s footnote, we at least know what’s going on with both team blue and team red.
Related Reading
- Best CPUs for Gaming: September 2020
- ASRock Z490 Aqua Motherboard Review: The $1100 LC Monoblock Flagship
- The Intel Comet Lake Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K CPU Review: Skylake We Go Again
- The Intel Z490 Overview: 44+ Motherboards Examined
- AMD Announces Ryzen "Zen 3" and Radeon "RDNA2" Presentations for October: A New Journey Begins
Source: Intel
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Slash3 - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
Radio silence on the AMD chipset side would suggest that ASMedia still hasn't been able to deliver a product fully capable of taking the baton away from AMD's X570 solution.At this point it wouldn't surprise me if they simply have vendors squeeze out a few new Rev 2 B550/X570 boards to ship with the appropriate Zen 3 capable AGESA while they're focused on AM5 / Zen 4.
Flunk - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
There has been talk of a X670 chipset that adds USB 4 support. If it's ready it will be announced tomorrow with the CPUs.Notagaintoday - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
"There has been talk of a X670 chipset that adds USB 4 support"Whomever is doing that talking, clearly isn't very well informed!
eek2121 - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
I can say this is false except for the fact that there won't be a new chipset.eek2121 - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
Zen 3 hits 4.9 GHz. Who cares about 100 MHz?What kills Intel is the fact that they can't roll out a 10 core Rocket Lake (according to Rumor).
That means that Rocket Lake will be faster than Comet lake, but will trail AMD's planned XT refresh and will be neck in neck with the 5xxx launch.
Note that AMD started playing this game a few months ago. Their marketing slides indicate they plan to continue it. AMD took an NVIDIA tactic and is using it to slap Intel...meanwhile, AMD is baiting NVIDIA to use that same tactic in order to launch faster GPUs after NVIDIA pushes out the Ti models (or maybe super, though rumors indicate Ti).
ikjadoon - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
People asking Intel for a 10nm CPU with a TDP over 28 W: "Are you not ashamed of yourself? Are you not embarrassed? This is really embarrassing."As if NVIDIA only released mobile GPUs for the 10-series, the 20-series, and the 30-series, and desktop users kept buying re-heated GTX 980 Ti GPUs.
It's uncanny how Intel's CPU division feels closer and closer to AMD's GPU division. "Marketing. Mainstream movie/game gimmicks. More marketing. Drips of unverified, unusable details."
At least for reviewers, though, hopefully you'll have more time between launches to dive deep.
Jorgp2 - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
>People asking Intel for a 10nm CPU with a TDP over 28 W: "Are you not ashamed of yourself? Are you not embarrassed? This is really embarrassing."Imagine being such a shill that you have to bend reality to fit your world view.
It's a 12-28w configurable TDP, just like AMD has a 10w-25w configurable TDP. And the AMD part runs at 18w when set to a 15w TDP, throttling hard all the while.
schujj07 - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
The OP is wanting a 10nm CPU with a 35/45/65...etc... TDP. The only 10nm CPUs from Intel are in the 12-28W range until server Ice Lake is released. However, that doesn't fix the lack of H branded mobile or desktop 10nm CPUs.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
A) WOOOOOSH. Jesus christ man.B) Funny you focus on AMD throttling when Intel needs that 28 watt to compete with the 15W "throttling" AMD part, and tools exist to up that TDP to whatever your heart (and heatsink) desire.
Jorgp2 - Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - link
>Funny you focus on AMD throttling when Intel needs that 28 watt to compete with the 15W "throttling" AMD part, and tools exist to up that TDP to whatever your heart (and heatsink) desireIt's funny, because it manages to compete with 8 core AMD 15w and 45w parts in various tests.