If you’re looking to upgrade your rig or pick up a new desktop, it may be worth waiting until next year. In a Medium post, Intel has confirmed that its 11th generation “Rocket Lake” CPUs will be arriving in the first quarter of 2021. They’ll also finally match AMD’s third-generation Ryzen chips with PCIe 4.0 support. Clearly, Intel is trying to splash a bit of cold water on AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs, which are launching tomorrow and will serve as Rocket Lake’s main competitor.
Intel’s confirmation comes a day after Videocardz reported on some key rumors about the Rocket Lake CPUs. The site claims they’ll launch in March, feature a faster “Cypress Cove” core architecture, and max out with an 8-core offering. The latter would be surprising since Intel’s Comet Lake S chips topped out with a 10-core CPU. Judging from some early GeekBench scores, Wccftech predicts these new chips will be an evolutionary leap ahead of the 10th-gen CPUs. They’ll reportedly have a 5GHz boost speed and be Intel’s farewell to its aging 14nm architecture.
