Intel’s Rocket Lake-S CPUs could debut in March with huge performance gains
Gigabyte sheds more details on upcoming Rocket Lake-S launch.
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What you need to know
Intel announced at the end of last year that the first wave ofRocket Lake-S desktop CPUs will be unveiledin Q1 2021. We now have a better understanding of when the CPUs will be making their debut thanks to Gigabyte.
In apress release, the motherboard brand has revealed that the Rocket Lake-S designs will be introduced in March 2021:
The latest 11th Gen. Intel Core processors will be launched on March 2021. The new processors keep the same architecture as the previous generation but they enable the PCIe 4.0 support.GIGABYTE’s R&D team is speeding up on the verification of more Z490 motherboards for a full-fledged support to the 11th Gen. Intel Core processors. The updated BIOS files will be uploaded to the GIGABYTE official website, so please check it out regularly.
In the meantime,leaked Geekbench scoresof the eight-core Core i7-11700K havesurfaced on Twitter, with a single-core score of 7,857 points handily outmatching theCore i9-10900Kand even the Ryzen 5950X, which netted 6,438 and 7,198 (courtesy ofAnandTech). The 11700K also posted a multi-core score of 42,011 points, which is again more than what the Core i9-10900K managed (41,663).
Intel promised double-digit IPC gains with the Rocket Lake-S designs, and it looks like that may indeed be the case. We’ll have much more to talk about the Rocket Lake architecture as we get closer to the launch date, so stay tuned.
The Core i9-10900K is still the best Intel CPU today, delivering outstanding gaming performance. That may not be the case once Rocket Lake shows up, but if you need a high-end CPU right now and aren’t willing to wait until later in the year, the 10900K continues to be a solid option.
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Harish Jonnalagadda is a Senior Editor overseeing Asia for Android Central, Windows Central’s sister site. When not reviewing phones, he’s testing PC hardware, including video cards, motherboards, gaming accessories, and keyboards.
