Two weeks from now, Intel and its board partners will be introducing their brand new Z590 (500-series) motherboards which would offer full support for 11th Gen Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs. The key feature of these boards aside from the next-gen CPU support would be advanced I/O features and full support for PCIe Gen 4.0 protocol.
Intel Z590 Motherboards Only Offer PCIe Gen 4.0 Compatibility When Running 11th Gen Rocket Lake Core i9, Core i7, & Core i5 Desktop CPUs, Not Supported By Comet Lake Refresh Core i3 CPUs
The information comes listed on several Z590 chipset based motherboards that we have started receiving from board partners ahead of the 11 January announcement. Each motherboard has a sticker on the top PCIe slot which mentions that the Gen 4.0 protocol will be supported by Intel's Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs.
As per the previously leaked information which covered all Intel Rocket Lake SKUs, the lineup will consist of Core i9, Core i7, and Core i5 chips. The rest of the lineup which includes Core i3, Pentium & Celeron series will not offer PCIe Gen 4.0 support and will retain Gen 3.0 compliancy since they are part of the Comet Lake family. Only Intel's Rocket Lake CPUs have the architectural upgrades necessary to support PCIe Gen 4.0.

The PCIe Gen 4.0 protocol hasn't been as big of a deal-breaker on the GPUs as it's been for PCIe based storage devices. Next-generation SSDs with PCIe 4.0 has shown tremendous performance uplifts & with technologies such as NVIDIA's RTX IO and Microsoft's DirectStorage for desktop PCs are definitely going to utilize the interconnect protocol to allow for even faster performance and access times.
Here's Everything We Know About The 11th Generation Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs
Intel's Rocket Lake-S desktop CPU platform will feature support on LGA 1200 socket which made its debut with the 10th Gen Comet Lake-S CPUs although on 400-series motherboards. The Intel Rocket Lake-S processors will be launching primarily for the 500-series motherboards but it has been confirmed that LGA 1200 motherboards will offer support for Rocket Lake-S CPUs, especially given the fact that PCIe Gen 4.0 is a prominent feature of Z490 motherboards which would only be enabled with the use of Rocket Lake-S desktop CPUs.
Motherboard makers, especially ASUS will be paying extra attention in incorporating hardware-level integration of PCIe Gen 4 on their Z590 line of motherboards versus their Z490 lineup as we pointed out here.

Main features of Intel's Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs include:
Increased Performance with new Cypress Cove core architectureUp to 8 cores and 16 threads (Double Digit IPC Gains Over Skylake)New Xe graphics architecture (Up To 50% higher Performance Than Gen9)Increased DDR4 3200 MHz Memory SupportCPU PCIe 4.0 Lanes (Available on Z490 & Z590 Motherboards)Enhanced Display (Integrated HDMI 2.0b, DP1.4a, HBR3)Added x4 CPU PCIe Lanes = 20 Total CPU PCIe 4.0 LanesEnhanced Media (12 bit AV1/HVEC, E2E compression)CPU Attached Storage or Intel Optane MemoryNew Overclocking Features and CapabilitiesUSB Audio offloadIntegrated CNVi & Wireless-AXIntegrated USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20G)2.5Gb Ethernet Discrete LANDiscrete Intel Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 Compliant)
Following are the main Rocket Lake Desktop CPUs that we can expect within the 11th Generation family:
Core i9-11900KCore i9-11900Core i9-11900TCore i7-11700KCore i7-11700Core i7-11700TCore i5-11600KCore i5-11600Core i5-11600TCore i5-11500Core i5-11500TCore i5-11400Core i5-11400T
Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake Desktop CPU Lineup Specs (Preliminary):
| CPU Name | Cores / Threads | Base Clock | Boost Clock (1-Core) | Boost Clock (All-Core) | Cache | Graphics | TDP (PL1) | TDP (PL2) | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-11900K(F) | 8 / 16 | 3.50 GHz | 5.30 GHz | 4.80 GHz | 16 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 125W | 251W | $539 US (K) $513 US (KF) |
| Core i9-11900(F) | 8 / 16 | 2.50 GHz | 5.20 GHz | 4.70 GHz | 16 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 65W | 224W | $439 US $422 US (F) |
| Core i9-11900T | 8 / 16 | 1.50 GHz | 4.90 GHz | 3.70 GHz | 16 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 35W | 115W | $439 US |
| Core i7-11700K(F) | 8 / 16 | 3.60 GHz | 5.00 GHz | 4.60 GHz | 16 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 125W | 251W | $399 US (K) $374 US (F) |
| Core i7-11700(F) | 8 / 16 | 2.50 GHz | 4.90 GHz | 4.40 GHz | 16 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 65W | 224W | $323 US $298 US (F) |
| Core i7-11700T | 8 / 16 | 1.40 GHz | 4.60 GHz | 3.60 GHz | 16 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 35W | 115W | $323 US |
| Core i5-11600K(F) | 6 /12 | 3.90 GHz | 4.90 GHz | 4.60 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 125W | 224W? | $262 US (K) $237 US (KF) |
| Core i5-11600 | 6 /12 | 2.80 GHz | 4.80 GHz | 4.30 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 65W | 154W | $213 US |
| Core i5-11600T | 6 /12 | 1.70 GHz | 4.10 GHz | 3.50 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 35W | 92W | $213 US |
| Core i5-11500 | 6 /12 | 2.70 GHz | 4.60 GHz | 4.20 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 65W | 154W | $192 US |
| Core i5-11500T | 6 /12 | 1.50 GHz | 3.90 GHz | 3.40 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 32 EU (256 Cores) | 35W | 92W | $192 US |
| Core i5-11400(F) | 6 /12 | 2.60 GHz | 4.40 GHz | 4.20 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 24 EU (192 Cores) | 65W | 154W | $182 US $157 US (F) |
| Core i5-11400T | 6 /12 | 1.30 GHz | 3.70 GHz | 3.30 GHz | 12 MB | Intel Xe 24 EU (192 Cores) | 35W | 92W | $182 US |









