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Intel has confirmed that its Core Ultra Series 4 "Nova Lake" CPUs will launch by year's end.
"Along with our next-generation Nova Lake coming at the end of 2026, we now have a client road map that combines best-in-class performance with cost-optimized solutions, giving me confidence that we are on the path to fortify market share and profitability in both notebooks and desktops over the next several years," CEO Lip-Bu Tan said during a recent earnings call.
As VideoCardz notes, Nova Lake is expected to be built around a new socket, known as LGA-1954. There will be a lot more pins than existing processors, so users will need a new motherboard to go with the new CPU. Rumors suggest the top chip could have as many as 52 cores spread across Intel's usual mix of Performance, Efficiency, and Low Power cores.
These will reportedly use new architectures—Coyote Cove for the P cores and Arctic Wolf for the E cores. There's also said to be a new neural processor design for enhanced AI workloads, and a new onboard graphics chip called XeP3, which should be faster even than the Xe3 on the new Panther Lake CPUs.
One of the most exciting additions to Nova Lake is the long-awaited Big Last Level Cache (BLLC). This would be Intel's alternative to AMD's 3D V-Cache, which has made top chips like the 9800X3D and 9950X3D the best gaming processors in the world by a large margin.
Intel hasn't had a CPU that could compete with AMD on gaming since the 12th generation. The 13900K and 14900K were decent but inefficient, so it would be great to see some competition at the top end in the next generation. Anything Intel brings to the table will have to face off with AMD's Zen 6 processors, though, which should be extremely powerful in their own right.
The last desktop CPUs Intel released were the Core Ultra 200 range, codenamed Arrow Lake. Intel is in the process of refreshing those CPUs with new Arrow Lake CPUs expected in the next couple of months. But the true next-generation desktop CPUs aren't due until we get a look at Nova Lake later this year.