PTTWeb forum user sharkbay , who has a pretty solid track record, has revealed the purported specifications for Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake (RKL) processors. If the information is accurate, Rocket Lake could top out at eight cores.
Details on Rocket Lake are pretty thin before today's leak. We knew that Rocket Lake is Intel's planned successor to Comet Lake . It'll probably be the last processors that feature the aging 14nm manufacturing process before Intel makes the transition to the new 7nm process node.
According to sharkbay, we can expect both Rocket Lake-U (RKL-U) parts for mobile and Rocket Lake-S (RKL-S) chips for desktops. The first comes with up to six cores inside a 15W envelope, while the latter features up to eight cores with a 125W TDP (thermal design power). This is certainly feels like a regression on Intel's part as Comet Lake-S (CML-S) reportedly sports up to 10 cores at with same TDP. However, Rocket Lake appears to bring other improvements to the table.
| Ice Lake | Comet Lake | Tiger Lake | Rocket Lake | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lithography | 10nm | 14nm | 10nm | 14nm |
| VRM | IMVP9 FIVR | IMVP SVID | IMVP9 FIVR | IMVP8 SVID |
| Y-series TDP / Cores | 9W / 4 | N/A | 9W / 4 | N/A |
| U-series TDP / Cores | 15 / 4 | 15W / 6 | 28W / 4 | 15W / 6 |
| H-series TDP / Cores | N/A | 65W / 8 | N/A | N/A |
| S¨-series TDP / Cores | N/A | 125W / 10 | N/A | 125W / 8 |
| AVX Support | 512 bits | 256 bits | 512 bits | 512 bits |
| Intel Turbo Boost Technology | Integrated | N/A | Integrated | N/A |
| Graphics / EUs | Gen11 / 64 | Gen9 LP / 48 | Gen12 / 96 | Gen12 / 32 |
| Display Support | HDMI 2.0b | HDMI 1.4b | HDMI 2.0b | HDMI 2.0b |
| DDR4 Speed / Capacity | 3,200 MHz / 64GB | 2,666 MHz / 128GB | 3,200 MHz / 64GB | 2,933 MHz / 128GB |
| LPDDR4x Speed / Capacity | 3,733 MHz / 32GB | 2,933 MHz / 32GB | 4,266 MHz / 32GB | 3,733 MHz / 32GB |
| LPDDR5 Speed / Capacity | N/A | N/A | 5,400 MHz / 32GB | N/A |
Specifications in the table are unconfirmed.
Perhaps the most significant upgrades with Rocket Lake are the rumored support for AVX-512 instructions and the implementation of Gen12 graphics . The addition of both features suggests that Rocket Lake could be based on Intel's Sunny Cove or Willow Cove microarchitectures. This doesn't sound implausible considering that there have been murmurs on the streets that Intel might port one of the two aforementioned microarchitectures to its 14nm processors.
There are two ways how this can work out. It's possible that Rocket Lake could utilize a backport of the Sunny Cove or Willow Cove microarchitectures with disabled features. Alternatively, Rocket Lake is actually based on some 14nm microarchitecture glued to the Gen12 chiplet via Intel's Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) interconnect.
On the graphics side, Rocket Lake seemingly checks in with Gen12 graphics with up to 32 Execution Units (EUs) and supports HDMI 2.0b. In terms of memory, Rocket Lake supports for up to 128GB of DDR4-2933 memory or 32GB of LPDDR4x-3733 memory.
The last we've heard is that Intel will launch Rocket Lake in the third quarter of next year.