Monday, August 17th 2026

Intel's New CPU Cores Debut on "Nova Lake-S" Desktop Before Xeon Servers

by
AleksandarK
 Discuss (49 Comments)
Intel's approach to releasing the latest CPU technology differs significantly from AMD's. Robert Hallock, the company's VP and general manager of the enthusiast business, confirms that desktop PC DIY enthusiasts are the first to experience the latest CPU cores. In an interview with Tom's Hardware, Hallock emphasized that Intel prioritizes bringing its newest CPU cores to desktops first, subtly hinting at the upcoming "Nova Lake-S" processor generation. Unlike AMD, which introduces its latest core designs in the server segment first, Intel debuts them on the desktop. While these cores will eventually be used in Xeon server processors, they initially appear on the desktop platform. This means that the "Coyote Cove" P-Cores and "Arctic Wolf" E-Cores will first be available for desktops, in contrast to AMD's Zen 6 CPU technology, which debuts with the EPYC "Venice" and only later appears in desktop CPUs.
Intel's Robert HallockWhat I would say is, as we think about our own roadmap, I have a new core. It's coming to desktop first. I mean, I hope enthusiasts do the math about that one, and that's all I'm going to say.
This doesn't mean that Intel's Xeon 7 "Diamond Rapids" won't feature the "Coyote Cove" P-Cores. Instead, the server platform will only be available after enthusiasts have had access to the new designs for some time. We anticipate the "Nova Lake-S" rollout to begin in January 2027, with the server Xeon 7 platform featuring the same core technology arriving later in the year.
Source: Tom's Hardware

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49 Comments on Intel's New CPU Cores Debut on "Nova Lake-S" Desktop Before Xeon Servers

#26
Geddagod
Space LynxI'm just telling you what Pat Gelsinger the former CEO said, Nova Lake is the culmination of everything they have been working towards from the original plan he set out.
Pat hyped up a lot of things, many of which weren't true and didn't end up delivering. There's a very good reason he is no longer the CEO of Intel.
And if NVL-S compute tiles aren't fabbed on 18A... well then we know that's not true regardless. Maybe they are though, it's not confirmed anywhere. Just that I doubt it will be.
Space LynxSo, call it whatever you want. nova lake is a big deal.
I mean I agree it's a big deal, just not as big of a deal as you made it out to be in your original comment.
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#27
ARF
Space LynxYep, I plan to have a Nova Lake rig. Very cool of them. I am loyal to none of these companies, they have all shown their true colors.

Looks like it comes out same exact time new FFXIV expansion launches, going to be a helluva fun time.
AGlezBThere's only one math to do: price vs performance. The rest is BS.
Intel is known for having higher profit margins than AMD – or said in other words – they charge you more, while (most of the time, especially during Athlon 64 and Ryzen) giving you less.

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#28
Space Lynx
Astronaut
ARFIntel is known for having higher profit margins than AMD – or said in other words – they charge you more, while (most of the time, especially during Athlon 64 and Ryzen) giving you less.

all of the companies suck imo

AMD has showed their true colors too in recent years, sadly.
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#29
Let3r
Seems good except for a few things.
1. Crazy power draw
2. New socket
3. You need to buy the configs with more cores then you need for gaming to get the bLLC
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#30
Hecate91
Space LynxI think factories will keep shifting all production towards AI, this may be a limited run CPU. Already the Intel CEO is talking about getting back into the ram business last week. I'm not taking the chance, as I want a backup CPU, as I have backups of everything else. So, if I can get this second ranked Nova Lake for $499 and a new mobo for $220 for it, I will prob go for it.

I will wait and see for day 1 reviews before I drive over to MicroCenter though.
I doubt motherboards for Nova lake will be $220, first of all because several motherboard manufacturers said they're raising prices by 40-50%, and Nova Lake is rumored to be power hungry.
And I wouldn't recommend a new gen of anything which might have bugs or weird quirks at launch, but you do you.
MakaveliI guarantee you one thing if WW3 breaks out you will not be chilling and gaming lol.
If WW3 breaks out anything with tech would be the least of our worries.
Although hopefully the enemies would target AI datacenters instead of fighting with nukes.
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#31
Geddagod
ARFIntel is known for having higher profit margins than AMD – or said in other words – they charge you more, while (most of the time, especially during Athlon 64 and Ryzen) giving you less.
I doubt this is the case anymore.
Posted on Reply
#32
Space Lynx
Astronaut
Hecate91I doubt motherboards for Nova lake will be $220, first of all because several motherboard manufacturers said they're raising prices by 40-50%, and Nova Lake is rumored to be power hungry.
And I wouldn't recommend a new gen of anything which might have bugs or weird quirks at launch, but you do you.
well I said I was waiting for reviews, if any of it is too excessive I will pass.

I got am5 and 7800x3d launch day and had 0 issues. meh
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#33
Rulumi
ARFIntel is known for having higher profit margins than AMD – or said in other words – they charge you more, while (most of the time, especially during Athlon 64 and Ryzen) giving you less.
That's a 9 year old video, nowdays Intel often sells for less profit and at better prices to the consumer than AMD. And giving more now too as well for now with things like the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus at prices not much higher than a Ryzem 7 9700X, same with current prices of Z890 motherboards being better nowdays while offering better connectivity than X870 and X870E that still use the Promontory 21.

At the end of the day all of these companies are all for profit business and when they are able to all of them may do non sense to take advantage of their customers without "better ethics" really and necessarily existing, and AMD as expected is not an exception now that they are in a position to take advantage of their users.
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#34
Bigshrimp
I wish I could be excited for a new CPU architecture release, I really do, but alas it's the computerpocalypse. If there isn't anything they can do to bring the prices down, then there is nothing I can do to stay a customer of theirs. They can make all the CPUs they want, and I know I won't be buying them in the foreseeable future due to the high cost of pretty much every part that goes into a PC. I say boycott every single company that is anti-consumer.

Did you know that Intel parts have recently been found in weapons of war being obtained and used by Russia and other adversaries that should have some form of restriction on being able to obtain said hardware? There is a lawsuit pending in the USA about this very issue. Not really surprised by this most recent revelation though, considering that they stopped giving/selling patriot interceptors (licenses and physical) and other stuff needed to defend Ukraine.
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#36
Tek-Check
"News" from Hallock... really...
He conveniently left out basic fact that Xeon 7 platform Diamond Rapids will not be ready anyway until mid next year. Plus, Xeon 7 is said to use Panther Cove core, which is not the same as Coyote Cove for desktop CPUs.

I am worried when a company or their reps think that the public is stupid and try to gaslight us with silly statements.
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#38
ISSEnterprise
Intel promising a 'gaming changing breakthrough' in Nova Lake years ago. Let's see whether it can hold up the premium productivity as well as best gaming experience on the same chip. If not, let's see whether is can bring better scalability to its Z or B series motherboard, similar to Z590 while 11 gen Core is terrible.
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#39
AGlezB
Tek-Check"News" from Hallock... really...
He conveniently left out basic fact that Xeon 7 platform Diamond Rapids will not be ready anyway until mid next year. Plus, Xeon 7 is said to use Panther Cove core, which is not the same as Coyote Cove for desktop CPUs.

I am worried when a company or their reps think that the public is stupid and try to gaslight us with silly statements.
What you said about gaslighting made me laugh thinking that if BS was flamable that statement from Hallock would have been required by law to come with a warning sticker. :laugh:

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#40
XeonsNOpterons
GeddagodIn nT maybe, but as Intel has shown in the past and AMD rn, that won't matter much if Zen 6 beats NVL in ST/gaming perf...
There is almost no chance Zen 6 beats Nova Lake in single thread either. Venice shows very disappointing turbo clock boosts over Turin, so highly unlikely the LSD rumors of 6.5+ GHz are true. And Coyote Cove will easily exceed Zen 6’s IPC.

And there are plenty of people who would take a minor FPS hit for much more performance în anything else.
Posted on Reply
#41
ARF
RulumiThat's a 9 year old video, nowdays Intel often sells for less profit and at better prices to the consumer than AMD. And giving more now too as well for now with things like the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus at prices not much higher than a Ryzem 7 9700X, same with current prices of Z890 motherboards being better nowdays while offering better connectivity than X870 and X870E that still use the Promontory 21.

At the end of the day all of these companies are all for profit business and when they are able to all of them may do non sense to take advantage of their customers without "better ethics" really and necessarily existing, and AMD as expected is not an exception now that they are in a position to take advantage of their users.
I wouldn't say that AMD charges more. AMD's CPUs are less power hungry, the platform has a decade longevity, and are overall more interesting options than the Intel counterparts.
Space Lynxall of the companies suck imo

AMD has showed their true colors too in recent years, sadly.
I agree that AMD also deserves a load of criticism but this is due to the inability to compete with Radeon.
All in all, AMD is the underdog, it is the smaller of the two evils, and in the end of the day it deserves our empathy.
I don't want AMD to be killed by Intel's anti–competitive measures and the mother of all programmes....
Posted on Reply
#42
Sol_Badguy
ARFI agree that AMD also deserves a load of criticism but this is due to the inability to compete with Radeon.
More like lack of will rather than lack of ability.
RDNA4 is a valid arch, they could've easily made a big chip with it. I've done the napkin math some time ago. 100% doable.
Posted on Reply
#43
Geddagod
XeonsNOpteronsThere is almost no chance Zen 6 beats Nova Lake in single thread either.
Idk... there are some rumors that NVL's ST perf improvement won't be much more than 10% over ARL. Which I would be surprised if AMD couldn't beat. And that's all they really need too, since LNC and Zen 5 are on par with each other.
XeonsNOpteronsVenice shows very disappointing turbo clock boosts over Turin,
Based on previous generations of epyc and desktop processors, the relationship between the Fmax uplift between server generations gen on gen and client DT generations gen on gen are nonexistent. Zen 5 for example saw a massive Fmax uplift in many skus for server and literally nothing in DT.
XeonsNOpteronsso highly unlikely the LSD rumors of 6.5+ GHz are true.
Maybe not, but 6.5GHz itself is already a ~14% perf uplift over Zen 5...
XeonsNOpteronsAnd Coyote Cove will easily exceed Zen 6’s IPC.
If coyote cove IPC uplift is anything like LNC was over RWC, we would see an ~15% IPC uplift in GB6... while Zen 6 GB6 leaks have pointed towards a ~8% IPC uplift over Zen 5 mobile, and if the desktop chip has a very healthy Fmax uplift on top of that, it would mean Zen 6 beating NVL in ST by a decent margin.

IMO it's 30/60/10 percent chances on Zen 6 beating/tying/losing ST perf.
XeonsNOpteronsAnd there are plenty of people who would take a minor FPS hit for much more performance în anything else.
Based on AMD's DT market share trends, I highly doubt this is true lol. Even if common sense sentiment says that should be true.
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#44
MufasaV
GeddagodIdk... there are some rumors that NVL's ST perf improvement won't be much more than 10% over ARL. Which I would be surprised if AMD couldn't beat. And that's all they really need too, since LNC and Zen 5 are on par with each other.

Based on previous generations of epyc and desktop processors, the relationship between the Fmax uplift between server generations gen on gen and client DT generations gen on gen are nonexistent. Zen 5 for example saw a massive Fmax uplift in many skus for server and literally nothing in DT.

Maybe not, but 6.5GHz itself is already a ~14% perf uplift over Zen 5...

If coyote cove IPC uplift is anything like LNC was over RWC, we would see an ~15% IPC uplift in GB6... while Zen 6 GB6 leaks have pointed towards a ~8% IPC uplift over Zen 5 mobile, and if the desktop chip has a very healthy Fmax uplift on top of that, it would mean Zen 6 beating NVL in ST by a decent margin.

IMO it's 30/60/10 percent chances on Zen 6 beating/tying/losing ST perf.

Based on AMD's DT market share trends, I highly doubt this is true lol. Even if common sense sentiment says that should be true.
That rumor is by the same guy who said Zen 5 achieves 40% specint and zen 6 goes up to 7ghz. Maybe he is right, but I won't trust him for Intel rumors just like we don't trust Kepler or MLID for Nvidia rumors (Remember how much better and more efficient Navi33 was supposed to be vs 4070 or 800W 4090ti slower than Navi31?). Someone like Jaykhin and OneRaichu are more trustworthy though all we got so far from them is double digit IPC aim for Arctic Wolf over Darkmont.

Considering the 5% IPC Pantherlake achieved over Arrowlake, it would be beyond pathetic for another 5% IPC and 0 clock boost as NovaLake Coyote Cove
Posted on Reply
#45
Frizz
I guarantee we'll see some crazy competitive pricing from either Intel or AMD once these are out, can't wait to have a de-lidded Nova Lake system though.
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#46
Geddagod
MufasaVThat rumor is by the same guy who said Zen 5 achieves 40% specint and zen 6 goes up to 7ghz
The leak isn't from him. Mind you he agrees with it, but it's not his leak lol.
MufasaVMaybe he is right, but I won't trust him for Intel rumors just like we don't trust Kepler or MLID for Nvidia rumors
Idk, he was hilariously wrong on AMD stuff like you said, but he was pretty accurate about ARL being a flop.
On the other hand, the last leak cycle we had MLID being pretty right about Zen 5 by the end, but very wrong about ARL.
I wouldn't trust Adroc with AMD leaks.
MufasaVSomeone like Jaykhin and OneRaichu are more trustworthy though all we got so far from them is double digit IPC aim for Arctic Wolf over Darkmont.
That's fair. I'm not too married to the idea, hence why I still think the most likely outcome is a tie in ST perf like so many previous contemporary generations before.
MufasaVConsidering the 5% IPC Pantherlake achieved over Arrowlake, it would be beyond pathetic for another 5% IPC and 0 clock boost as NovaLake Coyote Cove
Much of PTL's IPC uplift came from uncore related improvements and not the core itself. It's going to be interesting to see how much of the massive memory latency improvement of PTL is going to be retained by NVL since the mem controller is moving off die again like ARL-H. Maybe the fabric improvements help retain most of it, idk.

But yes I agree with you, if the ST perf uplift really is only >10%, so say something like 13 or 14% (if it's much higher I doubt they wouldn't suggest >15%), it would be a terrible showing from Intel. But after ARL, would it be that surprising either? A lot of people, reasonably, didn't believe ARL's extremely poor perf projection rumors at first either.
Posted on Reply
#47
MufasaV
GeddagodBut yes I agree with you, if the ST perf uplift really is only >10%, so say something like 13 or 14% (if it's much higher I doubt they wouldn't suggest >15%), it would be a terrible showing from Intel. But after ARL, would it be that surprising either? A lot of people, reasonably, didn't believe ARL's extremely poor perf projection rumors at first either.
You are right, which is why I allow for him to be right on that pathetic showing despite me saying he is a terrible source.
GeddagodMuch of PTL's IPC uplift came from uncore related improvements and not the core itself. It's going to be interesting to see how much of the massive memory latency improvement of PTL is going to be retained by NVL since the mem controller is moving off die again like ARL-H. Maybe the fabric improvements help retain most of it, idk.
In actual holistic benchmarks like 2024 cinebench, yes, memory performance is the biggest uplift. But it goes over 5% in those cases. Geekerwan shows around 10% specint and 7% specfp over Arrowlake and even less memory sensitive benchmarks show some improvement.

Pantherlake i9 388H

Speaking of uncore, Pantherlake memory latency is close to half. being in between Pantherlake and Arrowlake with higher RAM bandwidth and improved fabric may hopefully make up a lot of deficit.

Hopefully the final chip is better than the leaked engineering sample hitting overclocked 14900KS CPU-Z numbers (to be fair, 14900KS is higher than even zen 5 3D in CPU-Z so not much to infer there yet.)
Posted on Reply
#48
Rulumi
ARFI wouldn't say that AMD charges more. AMD's CPUs are less power hungry, the platform has a decade longevity, and are overall more interesting options than the Intel counterparts.



I agree that AMD also deserves a load of criticism but this is due to the inability to compete with Radeon.
All in all, AMD is the underdog, it is the smaller of the two evils, and in the end of the day it deserves our empathy.
I don't want AMD to be killed by Intel's anti–competitive measures and the mother of all programmes....
Currently both AMD CPUs and AM5 motherboards are more expensive than their Intel counterparts, it's what it is, and Zen 5 and Arrow Lake don't differ much in power usage for similar models when taking all metrics in account. Of course this doesn't mean that AMD options are bad at all, neither are price ourageous (outside of specific models, like the 5800X3D re-release), just business choices by AMD and so are Intel current ones as well. Only thing I wished though is that if AMD plans to really keep AM5 around that long, is to properly update the higher end motherboards from the currently limiting Promontory 21 with something new that's less limited.

I personally wouldn't give AMD any special treatment (empathy) over any other company (more than) with reason of just because AMD its AMD currently, currently they are doing very well and I have no reason to treat AMD or any other company in an special way over others if not fonded properly. At the end I'm just purchasing products from them for my use and working, I'm not directly working with or for any of these companies after all; however that last thing is just my personal view.
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#49
konataVT
enthusiast focus?? i am so excited to see intel give attention to the enthusiast again. seems like they were burned by the 14900KS, alot of issues with that sort of lead to them dialing back the clocks and focusing on recouping their performance without SMT to save power.

all goes well and we could see a 6.0GHz chip again, a bit of a return to form for intel if they can pull it off.

ultimately i wanna see AMD have a run for their money at the mid range of their product line, hopefully intel can release i5 processors with enough price/perf to put AMD on the ropes. as of late getting a core ultra PC has been a bit onerous.
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