Intel's 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" could have a brief stint as the tip of Intel's desktop spear. Wccftech reports that its successor, the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S," could launch by November 2021. The processor debuts on the new LGA1700 socket, and will introduce many firsts to the platform. The biggest change will be the heterogenous CPU core architecture. The top-spec "Alder Lake-S" is believed to be a 16-core/24-thread processor. From these, 8 will be larger high-performance cores, featuring HyperThreading, while the other 8 will be smaller high-efficiency cores. The chip is expected to be built on the 10 nm SuperFin process, and hence Intel is expected to significantly lower power draw of desktops when the machine is idling or handling lighter desktop loads.

Besides the major update to the CPU cores, "Alder Lake-S" is expected to continue featuring a Xe LP based integrated graphics solution. Significant changes with the I/O are expected, including DDR5 memory support with backwards compatibility for DDR4, and PCI-Express Gen 5.0. The LGA1700 socket is significantly different from the various LGA115x/LGA1200 sockets Intel has been pulling for its mainstream desktop platforms since 2009. It could trigger the need for new CPU coolers that support the socket.