Today we are putting the final pieces of the puzzle together on Intel’s 11th-gen desktop CPU series ahead of reviews later this month. In the lead up…
Today we are putting the final pieces of the puzzle together on Intel’s 11th-gen desktop CPU series ahead of reviews later this month. In the lead up to this launch, Intel had already given up quite a bit of information on Rocket Lake, plus the crazy stream of leaks we’ve received over the last few months that culminated in actual reviews of retail Core i7-11700K processors ahead of the actual announcement. We know the design is still built on their 14nm process, however it features a new core architecture codenamed Cyprus Cove. This is Intel’s Ice Lake design originally destined for 10nm, backported to 14nm, bringing with it up to a 19% IPC improvement compared to Skylake and its derivatives over the last 5 years. However it’s not the latest core design from Intel, with Tiger Lake – actually on 10nm – using a generation newer architecture in mobile devices. Intel had previously told us about the Core i9-11900K and the inclusion of a maximum of eight CPU cores. There’s a new Xe integrated GPU inside, new AI features, and new platform support through Intel’s 500 series motherboards. This is all stuff we’ve reported on already so let’s cut to the chase with the full list of processors and pricing. While there are a lot of individual processors listed in this table – far too many in my opinion – the basics of Rocket Lake are split up into three series: Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5, as usual. However unlike prior generations, there are no Rocket Lake Core i3 models, Intel is instead launching refreshed 10th-gen parts at the lower end which we’ll talk about soon. The Core i9 and Core i7 parts are very similar: all pack 8 CPU cores and 16 threads with 16MB of L3 cache. The K models are unlocked SKUs that support overclocking, the F models do not feature integrated graphics, and the T models are low power variants with a 35W TDP. The models that do feature an iGPU use new Xe graphics, although this is being branded as UHD Graphics 750 for some reason. You’ll find 32 execution units here with up to a 50% performance boost compared to previous generations according to Intel. With the Core i9 and Core i7 parts using the same basic layout, what separates them? The basic answer is frequency. The Core i7-11700K and KF are clocked up to 5 GHz on a single core, and up to 4.6 GHz all-core. The Core i9-11900K and KF push the single-core Turbo up to 5.3 GHz, but that’s with Thermal Velocity Boost, a feature that increases clock speeds when operating temperatures are low, and this feature isn’t enabled on Core i7. Without TVB, the 11900K still tops out at 5.2 GHz, an increase on the 11700K, however the all-core frequency is just 100 MHz higher at 4.7 GHz. The other difference between the Core i9 and Core i7 parts is hidden in the footnotes of the SKU list. The 11900K and KF both operate by default using “DDR4-3200 Gear 1”, while all the other SKUs, including the Core i7 range, default to DDR4-3200 Gear 2. These Gears refer to the frequency ratio between the memory controller and memory itself, which has historically been 1:1 on Intel parts. Gear 1 is the usual 1:1 ratio, while Gear 2 is a 2:1 ratio, halving the memory controller frequency. This means that while the unlocked Core i9 processors run at a standard 1:1 ratio, the locked Core i9 parts and the Core i7 line all use a slower 2:1 configuration by default. This introduces some further differentiation between the Core i7 and i9 parts as the i7 models will have worse memory performance. You may be familiar with these ratios if you’re an AMD Ryzen user given that the recommendation for those parts as well is to run in a 1:1 ratio, rather than pushing memory frequencies higher and falling back to 2:1. So it will be interesting to see how this affects Intel processors.
