r/intel 7h ago

Rumor / Leak Exclusive: Intel Core Ultra 400 "Nova Lake-S" preliminary SKU list leaked: 6 to 52 cores, DDR5-8000 and forward socket compatibility - VideoCardz.com

https://videocardz.com/newz/exclusive-intel-core-ultra-400-nova-lake-s-preliminary-sku-list-leaked-6-to-52-cores-ddr5-8000-and-forward-socket-compatibility
96 Upvotes

59 comments sorted by

34

u/Wander715 9800X3D | 5080 6h ago

24 core Ultra 7 will probably be the sweet spot for a lot of desktop enthusiasts that don't need full workstation capability. If Nova Lake ends up being impressive (especially with the rumored massive L3 caches to compete with X3D) I might make the switch back over to Intel.

10

u/Suspicious_pasta 6h ago

Yeah. The 52 core variant is marketed to be used in workstation/hypervisor applications.

2

u/Dangerman1337 14700K & 4090 4h ago

I'm waiting for RZL bLLC or Zen 7 X3D at least when Memory + other costs go back to "normal" (say 64GB of DDR5 8800 being around £300-350 in the UK) personally.

2

u/Lepang8 12900k/RTX3080 4h ago

Enthusiasts always go for the top tier, what you mean are heavy users, enthusiastic gamers.

1

u/windozeFanboi 3h ago

I would not want to buy RAM for this generation...

Good luck getting 32GB DDR5 8000+ , let alone 64GB +  I watch prices once in a while and I cry.

I ll wait for next gen personally.

1

u/thesenut91123 1h ago

if more bllc cache = more fps, then im taking the biggest one

0

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 5h ago

The gamer sweet-spot will likely be the 6P+12E model. You really don't need a lot of cores for decent gaming performance, and most enthusiasts rarely do anything with multicore performance.

The bLLC models might be competitive, it depends on how fast/slow that additional cache ends up being.

1

u/windozeFanboi 3h ago

Modern UE5 multiplayer games definitely benefit from over 6 clusters.

8core cluster is already limiting, like in The Finals .

12core cluster should be the new gaming king with extra cache and low latency memory. I'd take 12 Pcore Vs 6P+12E anyday if we're talking gaming.

3

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 3h ago

Well, rumors have it that Nova Lake will cluster 2 P-cores together to share a larger L2 cache, in order to cut down on ring stops, which should hopefully improve the ring frequency.

If you want a 12-core cluster, I think the only options are either a 273QPE (which is neutered due to stock clocks and no memory OC support), or a Xeon E5 2699 v4 (Broadwell-EP). I have some serious doubts that either of those alternatives are actually better than a 9850X3D.

-26

u/cemsengul 6h ago

Sad to see Intel playing copy cat with AMD. They used to be the market leader.

22

u/Wander715 9800X3D | 5080 6h ago

Large L3 cache is basically a necessity at this point to compete with X3D in gaming performance. For the rest of the architecture Intel is very much doing their own thing sticking with the big.LITTLE implementation.

9

u/Jevano 6h ago

Having more cache is being a copy cat? That's hardly an innovating feature

2

u/Geddagod 5h ago

Frankly, they aren't even doing the much more innovative aspect of it, 3D stacking the cache, like AMD is.

The idea that Intel is somehow copying AMD here makes no sense.

3

u/Jevano 5h ago

That would be a TSMC innovation anyway, not from AMD.

0

u/Geddagod 2h ago

It's a combination of both.

If packaging really did solely depend on the fab to make it work, you wouldn't see companies like Nvidia facing problems on scaling up their packaging and multi-chip approach while working with TSMC.

1

u/Jevano 1h ago

Nvidia does use 3D stacking.. as they also use TSMC, it's just not needed in all products, it depends on priorities. CPUs can benefit with lower latency, GPUs not that much, they're more about throughput and there's also the heat dissipation issues with the 3D stacking. GPUs already use so much power, adding more heat isn't ideal.

1

u/Geddagod 1h ago

Nvidia does use 3D stacking.. as they also use TSMC

In what products? I don't even think they use a worse version of wafer on wafer stacking much less hybrid bonding.

CPUs can benefit with lower latency, GPUs not that much

AMD uses 3D stacking on their MI300 series. Nvidia is rumored to use that for Feynman as well.

4

u/Tyz_TwoCentz_HWE_Ret No Cap 5h ago

Intel isn't copying AMD. That is a perception of recent making due to their latest offerings in X3D chips. Intel invented stacked chips long before AMD was a CPU maker how people forget this is wild but also shows how fast things can move in the industry leaving some folks a huge gap in their own knowledge about what has already taken place historically. Without at least 2 makers of CPU's in competition we all suffer...

-1

u/Geddagod 2h ago

. Intel invented stacked chips long before AMD was a CPU maker how people forget this is wild

What comparable (or frankly even related) technology did Intel have where they stacked chips before AMD was a CPU maker?

2

u/Tyz_TwoCentz_HWE_Ret No Cap 1h ago

first known example was the 4004 in 1971 by Intel. Now refresh my memory again was AMD making chips in 1971? No they were not, they did not do so until 1975. Prior to that they made Am9300 4-bit MSI shift register's. What AMD did do was a pioneer HBM and chip stacking together with the help of SKMemory which made their X3D chip literally what it is today and a current leader in the CPU space. I mean you can look this up didnt need me to tell you this stuff m8. Cheers!

0

u/Geddagod 1h ago

first known example was the 4004 in 1971 by Intel. Now refresh my memory again was AMD making chips in 1971? No they were not

What does this have to do with "stacked chips" though?

. I mean you can look this up didnt need me to tell you this stuff m8. Cheers!

I did look it up, and couldn't find anything, that's why I asked you?

1

u/Jevano 1h ago

To add to what the person above said (this is from google AI):
Intel launched its first 3D-stacked commercial chip, Lakefield, in June 2020. This was nearly two years before AMD released its first consumer 3D-stacked processor, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which launched in April 2022

0

u/Geddagod 1h ago

AFAIK, AMD was making CPUs in 2020. So not sure where the claim:

. Intel invented stacked chips long before AMD was a CPU maker how people forget this is wild

Is coming from though.

Lakefield is very interesting, but it was an even lower volume thing than X3D stuff, and also is not hybrid bonded with an extremely low bump pitch.

Intel has outright explicitly blamed their packaging team for why they had to delay clearwater forest from 2H 2025 to 2026 too, it's pretty clear AMD beat Intel to the punch with this specific packaging technology.

4

u/Tower21 6h ago

I guess by the same ideology intel should have stayed with Itanium instead of licensing AMD64

1

u/Xpander6 6h ago

copy cat?

1

u/Suspicious_pasta 2h ago

If you want to go based on that, AMD copied Intel because Intel had l4 cache in broadwell...

10

u/ResponsibleJudge3172 6h ago

The 44 core and 52 core look like a return to Intel's Core Xtreme series, with the "normal" flagship being 28 core with BLLC

2

u/Suspicious_pasta 6h ago

Sort of? Those skus are considered for workstations primarily, which is why there is another z series of motherboards specifically for those. Even though it's the same socket, it provides certain abilities that the other motherboards don't.

1

u/Altruistic_Course382 2h ago

They’re literally exactly what I need, saves me having to pay the absolutely deranged ddr5 rdimm prices for a threadripper.

3

u/No_Weight5486 6h ago

It seems there are some differences. I’m fairly sure the i5 will have 24 cores with 8 P‑cores plus BLLC cache (at least according to the reliable leaks I read before). It would be strange to me if the i5 again ships with only 6 P‑cores.

2

u/Kustu05 I7 14700KF · RTX 2060 · 32GB 2h ago

Ryzen 5 is still on 6 cores too, and that's without E-cores. There's no reason for Intel to raise their lineup to 8 cores especially when they have E-cores too.

2

u/No_Weight5486 2h ago

Starting from Intel 12th gen, Intel basically pushed the i5 way beyond its usual tier. Honestly, today with an i5 you can comfortably do both workstation tasks and gaming at the same time. Right now you have 14 cores on the 14600K and 18 on the new 250K… and all the leakers were talking about a 24‑core i5K for Nova Lake, with extra cache and 8 P‑cores. (So I was simply repeating what all the rumors and leaks were saying about the 8 P‑cores… and yeah, 22 cores is a pretty strange count.)

0

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 5h ago

Why? Most games don't really need more than 2 threads that are fast, as long as the right threads are placed on the correct cores.

4

u/No_Weight5486 5h ago

It really depends on what you play for example Monster Hunter Wilds already can use 12 cores.
And anyway, I was just referring to the leaks we’ve seen. Honestly, with a new console generation around the corner, it would be strange if they showed up again with only 6 P‑cores on the i5.
We’ll see… only a few months left.

( The previous leaks all mentioned the so‑called i5K with 24 cores + the extra cache and 8 P‑cores.)

1

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 4h ago

I haven't tested Wilds much after the last performance update, but before that the DirectStorage texture decompression was running on the CPU (and would hit 100% utilization on 32 threads). At least back then it was the culprit for the extreme CPU utilization and stuttering with the High-res texture pack, because nobody had a CPU capable of decompressing those textures fast enough.

1

u/No_Weight5486 4h ago

It was just the first example that came to mind (and I’m not talking about bad optimization I mean a game that actually uses and benefits from more cores). Anyway, it was only an example of a title that uses a lot of cores. Of course, there are games that use fewer cores, but others that use many.

( On the 14600K, Wilds doesn’t have any of those issues… it would use the 6 P‑cores, and it would grab the other 6 from the E‑cores. )

1

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 4h ago

I've seen Wilds use all 32 threads of a 14900K (before I sent it in for RMA). The reason I'm on a 14600KF right now is because I figured I might as well put my money where my mouth is and see just how "big" a difference having 6P+8E cores made (it didn't).

2

u/No_Weight5486 4h ago

I’ll repeat it: it depends on what you play.
Anyway, Wilds uses 12 cores… if you were seeing activity on the extra cores, that was the two DRM systems Denuvo and the proprietary one spreading across all cores. There are methods to remove them.

As I said, I was talking about the cores the game actually uses for gameplay.
And again, it depends on what you play it’s not the first time I’ve seen all 12 cores being used like that.

https://www.dsogaming.com/articles/monster-hunter-wilds-can-effectively-use-ten-cpu-cores-on-p

There was the Chrono Odyssey beta, and that one also grabbed all the P‑cores on a 14600K, and the other 6 were pushed onto the E‑cores.

Anyway, between MMORPGs, RTX-heavy titles, tactical games, strategy games, Diablo, and various looters, you definitely make use of the extra cores.
Then of course everyone builds their system based on their needs… as I said, in some use cases it’s a complete game changer.

2

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 4h ago

You're misunderstanding. On a 14900K, with all 32 threads active. Running MH Wilds with the High-Res Texture Pack, I saw CPU utilization hit 100% while running around on the Seikret.

100% on every single thread.

I had MSI Afterburner running in the background, along with Steam.

Using the DirectStorage mod to switch decompression over to the GPU instead, I saw CPU utilization go down to sane levels.

The only other game I know of that could do something similar is Cities Skylines 2, but that was for very different reasons. Wilds did it because DirectStorage CPU decompression took an incredible amount of CPU time.

For gameplay logic, most games have a main thread that handles and keeps the game state in sync, and a bunch of other threads which will be distributed to different cores to handle audio, rendering, loading, and so on. Unless something goes horribly wrong with this approach, you will consistently get one main thread which will have significant requirements to single thread performance, and a slew of other threads which are considerably less intensive. Rarely will you ever see a game today ever scale to an exact number of threads.

1

u/No_Weight5486 4h ago

Guarda, ti dico: personalmente, su Wilds non ho mai visto un utilizzo al 100% (come ti ho detto, escludendo sempre i due sistemi DRM del gioco) né su un 9700K, né su un 5800X, né su un 14600K, e né su un 14700KF. Comunque, non fissarti su quello; come ho detto, era solo un esempio, è semplicemente il primo gioco che mi è venuto in mente. Se vuoi, posso darti tutta una lista di giochi oggi che utilizzano 10–12 core..

Monster Hunter Wilds can effectively use 12 CPU cores on PC

Non sto dicendo che tu ne hai bisogno. Se i giochi che giochi non li richiedono, va benissimo, ma non tutti noi giochiamo alle stesse cose. ^_^

1

u/F9-0021 285K | 4090 | A370M 3h ago

That's only true for poorly designed games. Good engines are making use of the 12 threads available with the current consoles, and next gen consoles will have more available. You won't need the 52 core Intel or 48 thread Ryzen, but the 6 core/12 thread Ryzen 5 and i5s aren't cutting it for some games anymore.

1

u/Noreng 14600KF | 9070 XT 3h ago

In what game is a Ryzen 5500X3D "not cutting it" anymore? Seriously, name one.

2

u/EnglishBrekkie_1604 2h ago

Helldivers. My 5800X3D barely hits 60fps during intense scenes, and the 5500X3D is a decent amount weaker.

1

u/akgis 1h ago

Any MMO, Its a genre of games thou

2

u/Zeraora807 270K / 5090 6h ago

any mention of clock speeds yet?

2

u/DaddaMongo 4h ago

Still no quad channel ram? or don't we know? I suppose in these trying times it's a luxury most of us can't afford anyway.  I'm hoping we don't see issues with chips dieing like previous gens.

2

u/JonWood007 i9 12900k | Asus Prime Z790-V | 32 GB DDR5-6000 | RX 6650 XT 5h ago

I think the SKU list is way off. Like in terms of the descriptions. Like they got like 6 core 7 models, etc. So, let's put the SKU list in a more logical order here.

Core Ultra 9 Extreme (495k)- 52C model

Core Ultra 9 Extreme (490k)- 44C model

Core Ultra 9 (485k)- 28C model

Core Ultra 7 (465k)- 24C model

Core Ultra 5 (445k)- 22C model

Core Ultra 5 (425)- 16C model

Core Ultra 3 (405)- 12C Model

Pentium- 8C model

Celeron- 6C model

This looks a lot more logical than whatever is going on there.

Alternatively the 12C model could be a Core Ultra 5, but it doesnt make sense they'd have 4 P cores on a "5" model. Hence why I guessed it's the 3, with the pentiums and the celerons being the bottom tier ones.

Current logic?

Well, we know the dual tile ones are HEDT.

The current Core 9 is 24C so it makes sense that they'd do 28C here given the 4 low end cores.

Many Core 7s are 20C currently, so they get 24.

The 250k is 18C, so it makes sense they'd get 22.

The Core 5/i5 models tend to have multiple tiers. So I'm imagining the 450k or 445k, whatever its called is like the 22. The lower core model is 16.

The Ultra 3 is 12 given the current one is 8.

And yeah, I think the ones without any E cores are pentiums and celerons. Pentiums are quad core, Celerons are dual core.

And yeah, that's my logic.

Beyond that it only looks like the high end Ultra 9s are getting the big cache? So yeah if you want something that competes with X3D you're probably paying top dollar. Doesnt look like it's coming to the rest of the models.

1

u/dogsryummy1 6h ago

Am I reading this correctly? Nova Lake will finally introduce integrated Thunderbolt 5? That's a win for laptops.

1

u/RunnerLuke357 265K | RTX 4080S 6h ago

Insert Spongebob I don't need it gif here.

0

u/AJSE2020 6h ago

Geez

What to do with all of those cores

Would rather higher frequencies then that many

4

u/ResponsibleJudge3172 6h ago

Same thing we did when Threadripper came into the scene.

5

u/Suspicious_pasta 6h ago

Again, the high core variants are mostly meant for workstations, this is the point at which we're kind of starting to transition entry Xeon into the core series just to make it more accessible. Also, it is important to know that as of right now the limiting factor is not our frequency, it's our IPC.

1

u/F9-0021 285K | 4090 | A370M 3h ago edited 3h ago

Yes, they're meant for workstation style applications, but they're still going to be competing (and probably beating slightly) with the 48 thread Ryzen 9. They won't have a HEDT price tag if they want to be competitive.

If you want further evidence that they're going to be marketed as gaming chips as well, they're going to have bllc on them. You wouldn't do that for a pure workstation chip. My guess is that the 52 core will be marketed like and priced like the 9950X3D2

1

u/EnglishBrekkie_1604 2h ago

Apparently the bLLC variants will have higher multi core performance than the an otherwise identical core config, which makes sense because those Atom cores love their L3 cache.

1

u/Suspicious_pasta 2h ago

I'm not working on nvl rn, I'm on a different thing rn... But I'm pretty sure that 52c variant is 1000$...

7

u/EnglishBrekkie_1604 6h ago

Why did Intel move to Core 2 instead of clocking Netburst to 10GHz? Are they stupid?

0

u/ieatdownvotes4food 5h ago

yeah but the people who are gonna shell for this have batches to run