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Intel’s Next-Gen Desktop Chips Are Finally Here: After a brief preview at CES, the company is fully unveiling its 11th Gen Core desktop chips (better known by its codename, Rocket Lake-S). .
Leading the pack is Intel’s new flagship chip, the Core i9-11900K, with eight cores, 16 threads, increased clock speeds up to 5.3GHz, support for 3,200MHz DDR4 RAM, a total of 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, and compatibility with Older versions Intel 400 Series Chipsets.
Eagle-eyed Intel fans might note that the new chip is, on paper, actually a downgrade from last year’s top model, the Core i9-10900K, which offered 10 cores and 20 threads (and an improved clock speed). 5.3GHz similar).
That’s because Intel is debuting a new core desktop architecture for the first time in more than half a decade with its 11th-gen Rocket Lake-S chips called Cypress Cove. Cypress cove Finally It replaces the Skylake microarchitecture, which the company has been using since its sixth-generation chips in 2015.
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But the Cypress Cove design isn’t really a completely new microarchitecture; it’s actually Intel’s Willow Cove chip designs and technologies that the company has been using in its 11nm 10nm Tiger Lake chips that Intel is backing to its 14nm production process.
However, since those designs were intended for 10nm chips, Intel is limited in the number of cores it can fit by scaling them up to a size of 14nm; hence the reduction in core count year over year. But Intel still says that the new chips will offer better performance (at least, in some cases) than the 10th generation, with the core architecture allowing up to 19 percent IPC (instructions per cycle) than the previous generation.
Intel’s argument here is effectively that the core count is not enough on its own – frequency speed and performance are also important, and thanks to the maturity of the 14nm production process, Intel is very good for getting every last drop of performance out of these chips.
Intel 11th Gen Desktop Chips
| Model | Cores / Threads | Base Clock Speed (GHz) | Increased clock speed (GHz) | Turbo Boost Max 3.0 Clock Speed | Thermal Rate Boost Rate, Single Core / All Core (GHZ) | Smart cache | TDP (W) | Graphics | Recommended price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Cores / Threads | Base Clock Speed (GHz) | Increased clock speed (GHz) | Turbo Boost Max 3.0 Clock Speed | Thermal Rate Boost Rate, Single Core / All Core (GHZ) | Smart cache | TDP (W) | Graphics | Recommended price |
| i9-11900K | 8/16 | 3.5 | Up to 5.1 | Up to 5.2 | Up to 5.3 / 4.8 | 16M | 125 | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 539 |
| i9-11900 | 8/16 | 2.5 | Up to 5.0 | Up to 5.1 | Up to 5.2 / 4.7 | 16M | Sixty-five | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 439 |
| i7-11700K | 8/16 | 3.6 | Up to 4.9 | Up to 5.0 | N / A | 16M | 125 | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 399 |
| i7-11700 | 8/16 | 2.5 | Up to 4.8 | Up to 4.9 | N / A | 16M | Sixty-five | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 323 |
| i5-11600K | 6/12 | 3.9 | Up to 4.9 | N / A | N / A | 12M | 125 | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 262 |
| i5-11600 | 6/12 | 2.8 | Up to 4.8 | N / A | N / A | 12M | Sixty-five | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 213 |
| i5-11500 | 6/12 | 2.7 | Up to 4.6 | N / A | N / A | 12M | Sixty-five | Intel UHD Graphics 750 | $ 192 |
| i5-11400 | 6/12 | 2.6 | Up to 4.4 | N / A | N / A | 12M | Sixty-five | Intel UHD Graphics 730 | $ 182 |
And Intel benchmarks (obviously) back that argument: Head-to-head with last year’s Core i9-10900K, the i9-11900K offered between 8 and 14 percent more performance in games like Gears 5, Grid 2019, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Y Total War: Three Kingdoms. Intel also says its superior chip outperforms AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 5900X processor for those titles, albeit by slightly smaller margins (3-11 percent better, based on Intel benchmarks).
That said, all of Intel’s benchmarks ran at 1080p, so we’ll have to stay tuned for a more comprehensive benchmarking in the future across a wider range of titles, and particularly at 4K resolution.
The new architecture also brings other improvements, with integrated graphics up to 50 percent better compared to Gen9 thanks to the company’s new Xe graphics, with a third more EU than its Gen9 graphics.
However, given that these are desktop chips that will almost certainly be paired with a high-end discrete graphics card, that’s not the most groundbreaking improvement. And while Intel will offer several F-series models of the new GPU-less chips, the overall design remains the same on those models. That means Intel won’t offer any niche models that ditch integrated GPUs to try and fit in more cores, at least for now.
The new chips also feature other improvements. The 11th Gen chips add resizable BARs to increase the frame rate on Nvidia and AMD compatible graphics cards. There’s built-in support for both 20Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 and Intel’s Thunderbolt 4, along with DDR4-3200 RAM. And Intel has added four additional PCIe Gen 4 lanes, for a total of 20.
As is traditional for a major new chip release, Intel is also introducing its 500 series motherboards alongside the new processors, but Rocket Lake-S CPUs will also be compatible with 400 series motherboards.
Additionally, there are some new overclocking options with the new chips for users looking to squeeze even more power. Specifically, Intel’s Extreme Tuning Utility software is updated with a new user interface and some updated features along with the 11th generation chips.
The new 11th generation Intel desktop processors are available starting today.
