Internet is filled with rumors and Intel is one organization that will have a plethora of leaks on an average basis. Sometimes I feel like their servers and sensitive information is stored in a server whose access passcode is “123”.
on a serious note, we have yet another leak regarding intel, and this time we get to see some details about the company’s next-generation CPUs succeeding its Meteor Lake 2023 lineup. We have three new families starting with Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake & Nova Lake.
Alder Lake (Golden Cove/Gracemont) Q4’21 / Q1’22 – predicted to be competitively weak vs AMD/Apple offerings that time.
Raptor Lake (Raptor Cove / Gracemont) Q3’22 / Q4’22 – 10% CPU perf boost and 8/16 configuration puts intel back on par but expect AMD/Apple to refresh their products as well.
Meteor Lake (Redwood Cove / Crestmont) Q2’23 – Intel’s first true triplet or tile-based design. Different dies built on TSMC / Intel processes. More of a node shrink with single-digit performance improvements. AMD will again extend the lead with Zen 4+ / 5.
Arrow Lake (Lion Cove / Skymont) Q4’23 – Will feature an updated compute tile with 8/32 config for the high-end enthusiast products. Might achieve parity with AMD offerings at the time but loses out to Apple in power efficiency.
Lunar Lake (Lion Cove / Skymont) Q4’24 – This is the product that will use TSMC 3nm as reported by Nikkei. Big performance jump expected and designed to achieve parity or beat AMD and Apple in both performance and power efficiency.
Nova Lake (Panther Cove [tentative]/ Darkmont) 2025 – This will mark the biggest architectural change in CPU architecture since the Core architecture is introduced in 2006. Intel is working to build entirely new architecture from the ground up much like Ryzen with up to 50% CPU performance improvement from the lunar lake. This is also the reason why Glenn Hinton returned.
Arrow Lake
Diving straight into the new Arrow Lake line of chips which is the first entry in the list and this family will be the architectural update on the Intel 4 process node. Though we don’t have any news regarding the looks of the family we know that Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs will reportedly feature an updated compute tile with Lion Cove & Skymont cores in up to 40 core configurations (8 Big + 32 Small cores).
Lunar Lake
Next up are the 16th Gen Lunar Lake chips, and these will reportedly be the first CPUs on the Intel 3 process node. Sources claim that this chip family will offer performance that will far surpass the competing AMD and Apple processors as we have never heard that before. And the launch date of Lunar Lake will be in late 2024 or early 2025, and as if AMD and Apple are going to be quiet till then.
Nova Lake
lastly, we have the Nova Lake CPUs which will bring brand new architectures known as Panther Cove and Darkmont to the market. This will be the biggest architectural uplift in Intel’s history, even bigger than the Core architecture itself introduced back in 2006. it’s stated that this family will offer more than 50% uplift over the Lunar Lake chips. However, this will be launched by the end of 2025 or even move to 2026 at the earliest.
Again, this is a leaked line up and always expect intel to never meet their deadlines. Peace out.
Intel Mainstream Desktop CPU Generations Comparison:
| Intel CPU Family | Processor Process | Processors Cores/Threads (Max) | TDPs | Platform Chipset | Platform | Memory Support | PCIe Support | Launch |
| Sandy Bridge (2nd Gen) | 32nm | 4/8 | 35-95W | 6-Series | LGA 1155 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 2.0 | 2011 |
| Ivy Bridge (3rd Gen) | 22nm | 4/8 | 35-77W | 7-Series | LGA 1155 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2012 |
| Haswell (4th Gen) | 22nm | 4/8 | 35-84W | 8-Series | LGA 1150 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2013-2014 |
| Broadwell (5th Gen) | 14nm | 4/8 | 65-65W | 9-Series | LGA 1150 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2015 |
| Skylake (6th Gen) | 14nm | 4/8 | 35-91W | 100-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2015 |
| Kaby Lake (7th Gen) | 14nm | 4/8 | 35-91W | 200-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2017 |
| Coffee Lake (8th Gen) | 14nm | 6/12 | 35-95W | 300-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2017 |
| Coffee Lake (9th Gen) | 14nm | 8/16 | 35-95W | 300-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2018 |
| Comet Lake (10th Gen) | 14nm | 10/20 | 35-125W | 400-Series | LGA 1200 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2020 |
| Rocket Lake (11th Gen) | 14nm | 8/16 | 35-125W | 500-Series | LGA 1200 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 4.0 | 2021 |
| Alder Lake (12th Gen) | Intel 7 | 16/24 | TBA | 600 Series | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2021 |
| Raptor Lake (13th Gen) | Intel 7 | 16/24 | TBA | 700-Series | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2022 |
| Meteor Lake (14th Gen) | Intel 4 | TBA | TBA | 800 Series? | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2023 |
| Arrow Lake (15th Gen) | Intel 4? | 40/48 | TBA | 900-Series? | TBA | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2024 |
| Lunar Lake (16th Gen) | Intel 3? | TBA | TBA | 1000-Series? | TBA | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2025 |
| Nova Lake (17th Gen) | Intel 3? | TBA | TBA | 2000-Series? | TBA | DDR5? | PCIe Gen 6.0? | 2026 |
