Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake desktop CPUs launching in Q1 2021

Before the ARM's DevSummit and AMD's launch event, Intel has confirmed its 11th-generation 'Rocket Lake' desktop CPUs. It will be arriving in the first quarter of 2021. Also, the new S-series processors will finally have support for PCIe 4, which has double the bandwidth of PCIe 3. The Comet Lake didn't have PCIe4 while its AMD counterpart supported it.

There are also expectations for native support for Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6. Expecting a DDR5 RAM is not too much, as it has already been available for a year now. The 11^th Gen Rocket Lake could be powered by Intel's latest Xe integrated Graphics, which is very powerful, as much as dedicated graphics from Nvidia or AMD.

Also, the Rocket Lake S processors will support LGA 1200 socket that debuted with Comet Lake S. However; the LGA 1200 socket won't be supported forever. Interestingly, LGA 115x, which debuted with sixth-gen, made up its way to the ninth-gen. The chances are that Rocket Lake will be the last 14nm product for desktops employing the older "Skylake architecture" or the latest "Willow Clove" backported.

However, the biggest question is still if Intel will go with a 14nm process or a 10nm one. Although we had seen a 10nm process from intel for the ultrabooks, the Desktop series still had a 14nm process. For reference, AMD's Ryzen 3000 series is manufactured on a 7nm process. As per earlier reports, that Rocket Lake will be succeeded by the 12th Gen 'Alder Lake' architecture, which will also be based on a 10nm process.