We’re nonetheless getting our heads round Intel’s newest Arrow Lake desktop CPUs (truly you could possibly say, so is Intel). But right here comes information of its successor, particularly Nova Lake.
It’s been noticed on a delivery manifest by X consumer X86 is useless&again (by way of Tom’s Hardware). The manifest offers little element, although it appears to point the chip in query could also be a low-end i3 variant. Of course, Intel now not makes use of the “i” prefix in its CPU nomenclature, so that could be some type coincidence or only a hangover from the earlier branding period, a placeholder or comparable.
Anyway, Intel itself hasn’t revealed a lot about Nova Lake apart from to say that it’ll largely be in-built home, with a couple of remoted fashions probably farmed out to TSMC.
Due across the 2026 or 2027 time-frame, Intel hasn’t explicitly stated which manufacturing node might be utilized by Nova Lake, however on condition that it says its subsequent cellular CPU, Panther Lake, might be produced internally on 18A silicon, and that Panther Lake comes earlier than Nova Lake, 18A a minimum of looks as if a secure guess.
While there are some rumours that Nova Lake might be constructed on Intel’s future 14A node, that’s relatively speculative, what with Intel but to show that 18A is working properly. Moreover, precise take a look at chips like this constructed on 14A would not appear possible.
The different massive query entails Nova Lake’s building. It’ll be a chiplet design once more, however what sort of chiplets? Arrow Lake’s structure arguably suffers because of the reminiscence controller being situated on a separate die from the CPU cores, introducing performance-sapping latency.
Intel’s extra profitable Lunar Lake laptop computer chip used simply two chiplets and put the CPU cores on the identical die because the reminiscence controller. It’s unclear precisely how Panther Lake and Nova Lake might be segmented. But some rumours declare Panther Lake can have CPU cores and reminiscence controller on the identical die, whereas Nova Lake is not going to.
As for the specifics of these cores, it is thought Nova Lake will get Panther Lake’s Panther Cove P-cores, renamed to Coyote Cove, plus Arctic Wolf E-cores. At this stage, little or no is understood about how these cores carry out. But, arguably, it will be that 18A silicon that defines Nova Lake as a lot as something.
How good will 18A be? Will Intel truly use 18A for Nova Lake? After all, Arrow Lake was initially meant to a minimum of partly constructed on Intel’s 20A node earlier than Intel summarily ditched that concept and shifted the entire thing bar the bottom tile to TSMC, with the CPU cores made on TSMC’s N3B node.
Anyway, with Arrow Lake hardly setting the PC fanatic world alight, we dare say Nova Lake cannot come quickly sufficient. Lunar Lake reveals that Intel hasn’t completely misplaced its mojo, so there isn’t any motive why Nova Lake cannot be a banger. But it does relatively have to be simply that to get Intel again on observe and cease what at present seems like a little bit of an inevitable slide in the direction of an eventual demise.
