Intel Rocket Lake and Alder Lake Desktop CPUs are launching this year but the latter is going to be a bigger deal for the blue team as not only does it comes with a brand new process node but also a brand new chip and architecture design.

Intel Alder Lake CPU Rumored To Feature Up To 20% Increase in IPC, Announcement in September 2021

In a post over at HKEPC, it is stated that Intel's Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs will be available on 15th March 2021. The 11th Generation Rocket Lake lineup will be replaced by the 12th Gen Alder Lake lineup within the same year. Compared to the 11th Gen family, the 12th Gen Alder Lake family will offer more cores, a new architecture, and also a brand new process node. This will be Intel's first new process node in over 6 years since the release of Broadwell.

The site reports that Intel's Alder Lake CPUs will feature the 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process node that delivers a 15% reduction in power consumption while the Golden Cove architecture is expected to deliver IPC gains of at least 20% over Willow Cove. For comparison, the Cypress Cove cores on the Rocket Lake CPUs deliver around 18% IPC gains over Skylake and Willow Cove does improve slightly upon that. In general, Golden Cove cores would deliver a 40-50% IPC uplift over Skylake which is similar to what was rumored a while back.

A picture of the Intel Alder Lake Desktop CPU sitting in a tray. (Image Credits: Videocardz)

For the Gracemont Atom cores, the performance is suggested to be similar or slightly better than Skylake cores but with a much lower power draw. An overall IPC gain for the complete Alder Lake chip is expected around 16-18%. The source also states that while Alder Lake's true competitor is AMD's Zen 4, those CPUs won't see the light of day till 2022 due to the insufficient capacity of TSMC's 5nm process node so it is possible that AMD would release an intermediate solution such as the rumored Warhol lineup of Zen 3+ based Ryzen CPUs that utilize TSMC's 6nm process node.

The Intel Alder Lake CPUs are rumored for an announcement in September 2021 followed by a launch in December 2021.

Here's Everything We Know About The Next-Gen Alder Lake CPU Family

The Alder Lake CPUs are not only going to be the first desktop processor family to feature a 10nm process node but would also feature a new design methodology. From what we know so far, Intel plans to include a mix of CPU cores that are based on different IPs. The Alder Lake CPUs will come with standard high-performance 'Cove' cores and smaller yet efficient 'Atom' cores. This big.SMALL design methodology has been incorporated on smartphones for a while now but Alder Lake will be the first time we see it in action in the high-performance segment.

We don't have any specifics of which generation of 'Cove' or 'Atom' architecture Intel plans to utilize for its Alder Lake CPUs but their roadmap does point to Golden Cove and Gracemont architectures availability by 2021. It is possible that we would see these cores in actions first on the desktop CPU platform but would also be utilized in a Lakefield successor. You can learn more about the various Alder Lake SKU configurations here and here.

Following are some of the updates you should expect from Intel's 2021 architecture lineup:

Intel Golden Cove (Core) Architecture:

Improve Single-Threaded Performance (IPC)Improve Artificial Intelligence (AI) PerformanceImprove Network/5G PerformanceEnhanced Security Features

Intel Gracemont (Atom) Architecture:

Improve Single-Threaded Performance (IPC)Improve Frequency (Clock Speeds)Improve Vector Performance

The CPUs will be compatible with the LGA 1700 socket which has a much larger area footprint than LGA 1200. The package size for the chips is 45.0 x 37.5 mm whereas the existing LGA 1200 package is 37.5 x 37.5 mm. As for the demo unit itself, an undisclosed Intel Alder Lake CPU was running on a reference test platform that featured Intel's stock fan cooler and had two DIMMs operating next to it. There is no GPU attached so the platform was running off the Iris Xe GPU that will be featured on the Alder Lake CPUs. The DIMMs seem to be DDR5 but we cannot confirm this at the moment.

In addition to the chips, the LGA 1700 platform is said to feature the latest and brand new I/O tech such as support for DDR5 memory, PCIe 5.0, and new Thunderbolt / WiFi capabilities. While the chip design methodology isn't anything new as we have seen several SOCs feature similar core hierarchy, it would definitely be interesting to see a similar outing on a high-performance desktop CPU lineup.

Intel Mainstream CPU Generations Comparison: