Earlier this year, insiders confirmed that Intel is preparing to release a 52-core Nova Lake-S desktop processor. This will be a major step forward in the development of the company’s desktop architecture, as it will be the first time Intel will significantly increase the number of cores compared to the previous generation. For example, in the Arrow Lake series, the number of Performance and Efficient cores will actually double.
According to preliminary data, the Nova Lake-S platform will be configured with 16 productive P-core, 32 energy-efficient E-core and 4 low-power LP-core. They will be based on Coyote Cove and Arctic Wolf microarchitectures.
In June, the NVL-S designation first appeared in shipping documents. It did not refer to finished processors or test samples for thermal studies, but to test equipment. The data also confirmed the use of a new LGA-1954 socket with dimensions of 45×37.5 mm. These dimensions are the same as the current LGA-1851, so it is likely that most existing cooling systems will remain compatible, but not the motherboards. Other reports indicate that the mobile version of Nova Lake-S will use the BGA-2540 package.
Nova Lake-S is expected to launch later this year or after engineering samples are available. Usually at this stage, Intel completes the last adjustments before mass production. It is not yet known whether the new line will be called Core Ultra 300 or Core Ultra 400, as the company is also preparing Arrow Lake Refresh for desktops and Panther Lake for laptops. In this situation, the 400 index looks more likely.
Some performance indicators for future chips have also been revealed. It is worth recalling that the series Core Ultra 200 in gaming performance tests was about 5% slower than the previous generation. Nova Lake is rumored to provide at least a 10% increase in single-threaded performance. A slide published online shows that Intel is targeting a 1.1x performance increase in single-threaded tasks and 1.6x in multi-threaded tasks, most likely — compared to the Core Ultra 200.
Although this slide does not specify which product segment is meant, one thing is clear — Intel is once again focusing on gaming performance. This aspect was hardly touched upon during the Arrow Lake presentation. Now, the company explicitly mentions the desire for “leadership in gaming performance”. This may mean an intention to get ahead of AMD Ryzen 9000X3D, which is now considered the best choice for gamers.
Source: videocardz 1, 2
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