Intel's one-two punch plan in desktop CPUs is taking shape — Z990 spotted, Nova Lake detailed, ‘Raptor Lake Next’ teased

We learned a lot about Intel’s upcoming plans for desktop CPUs at Computex 2026. In classic Intel fashion, we’ve already heard a lot about the company’s next-gen CPUs, codenamed Nova Lake, even while the recent Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs are still warm from the oven. But on the ground in Taipei, we heard not only more about Nova Lake and the Z990 platform it’s arriving on, but also how Intel intends to handle the rollout and how it will fill the gaps in its lineup with “Raptor Lake Next,” which is supposedly slated to launch next year.

Trade shows are the best opportunity to learn details about unreleased products before they show up in a press deck, and simultaneously the worst venue to do so. With jet-lagged representatives and reporters, thousands of people whizzing past, and the threat of Jensen Huang showing up to sign components and shut down a floor on a moment’s notice, it’s easy for things to get lost in the shuffle. So, we’re going to work through everything we learned about Intel’s upcoming plans in stages, starting with details that are confirmed, and working toward more speculative murmurs.

Intel has a fairly aggressive consumer roadmap, which the company itself would tell you – and the company told us as much at Computex, as a matter of fact. Both Nish Neelalojanan, senior director of client product management, and the recently joined Alex Katouzian, executive VP and GM of client, played up Intel’s roadmap to Tom’s Hardware, and for good reason.

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Chronologically, Intel’s plans look something like this: We’ll see the first Nova Lake SKUs roll out at CES 2027. A few months later, we’ll see a refresh on the LGA 1700 socket with “Raptor Lake Next” CPUs, and come Computex next year, Intel will launch a 52-core flagship Nova Lake SKU. None of that is confirmed by Intel, and we have varying degrees of confidence in each step of the roadmap, so take it as speculation for now. We’ll dig more into the details we have and what’s simply rumored below.

What about AMD?

Before Intel, we should at least look at why we’re not talking about AMD’s next-gen desktop plans. Basically, we don’t have a ton of information on Zen 6 CPUs yet, and even less information about Olympic Ridge, the desktop consumer lineup of Zen 6 chips. Computex didn’t change that fact.

At Computex, AMD revealed the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, relaunched the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and brought the RX 9070 GRE to the rest of the world. Unlike previous years, AMD didn’t hold a keynote, where we might’ve seen a more concrete tease of Olympic Ridge; AMD has already teased Zen 6 broadly several times. Bigger Zen 6 news is likely at the company’s Advancing AI event next month.

Although AMD hasn’t said when Olympic Ridge will launch, we originally expected it in late 2026. Now, 2027 is very likely. AMD has shifted the Zen 6 conversation toward its EPYC Venice chips, and confirmed production ramp on Venice in May. Although AMD traditionally leads with a consumer launch at the turn of a new microarchitecture, it’s unlikely that Olympic Ridge will launch before Venice. Demand for CPUs is spiking in the data center for agentic AI workloads, after all, and AMD is adjusting accordingly.

Olympic Ridge probably isn’t top of mind right now, from both AMD itself and its partners. AMD laid the groundwork for a unified CPU architecture generations back, and Intel’s approach has been a bit more disparate across client and data center (although that’s been changing with releases like Xeon 6 and Xeon 6+). We don’t know when Olympic Ridge news will arrive, but it almost certainly follows far greater detail about Zen 6 in the context of Venice.

What’s confirmed

Let’s start with the concrete details about Intel’s future CPU plans. These are things we have direct evidence for, be it photos, our own hands-on time, or sources we’re extremely confident in. At least two Z990 motherboards were at Computex, a third is rumored, and we saw (and held) what looked to be a near-production model in a closed-door meeting. And from that, we can already tell a lot about Nova Lake.

First, the LGA 1954 socket, which has now been pictured (we were told not to take pictures, but someone else did the dirty work, it seems). It’s the same size as the LGA 1851 socket, measuring 45 mm x 37.5 mm, and it retains compatibility with existing coolers, which we were able to confirm at Computex. It features more pins, as the name reveals, and uses the 2L-ILM, or two-lever Independent Loading Mechanism. The picture of the socket circulating matches what we saw at Computex.

The motherboard we saw featured dual 8-pin EPS connectors, along with an 8-pin PCIe connector near the bottom of the board, which is said to provide auxiliary power to the CPU. We’ve seen a leaked photo of the Z990 PCH now, which is said to draw more power due to broader PCIe 5.0 support. The Z990 board we saw, at least, had three PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots, along with three PCIe 5.0 expansion slots. Short of perhaps specialized designs with extra M.2 slots, we expect Z990 to support PCIe 5.0 across the board.

As for the chips themselves, all that is confirmed from Z990 motherboards is that Nova Lake can scale up to a high-end power design. We’ll speculate more on specific numbers later, but we’ve seen auxiliary power beyond two 8-pin EPS connectors on two Z990 motherboards now, and the motherboard we held had an extremely high-end VRM design; we can’t say more than that at this point.

An important caveat here is that we’re dealing with high-end motherboards and discussing how high the platform can scale, not how it will scale. Plenty of ink has been spilled about Nova Lake’s supposedly high power draw, but we really don’t have details about the chips themselves, rather just the tippy-top of the platform that will support them.

Outside of Z990 boards, Intel has confirmed that Nova Lake is “coming at the end of 2026.” That’s what CEO Lip-Bu Tan said at the company’s full-year 2025 earnings call back in January. What we were told by multiple vendors at Computex is Q1 2027, with a portion of those vendors specifically pointing to CES 2027. Similarly, with Z990 motherboards, some vendors said Q1 2027 while others said Q4 2026 (one even hinted at Q3). Believe it or not, these timelines actually all match up.

What’s lost in translation here is when the sale is happening. Before Nova Lake launches publicly, Intel and motherboard vendors will need to sell products into the channel, which, a few months later, will be available for sale at retailers for you to buy. What we’re likely looking at is sales into the channel in Q4, a public launch of Nova Lake at CES 2027, and retail sales in Q1. When Tan says Nova Lake is coming at the end of 2026 to a group of investors, he’s likely referring to selling into the channel, not the final retail sale.

What’s likely

Now, we’re getting into a bit more speculation. These are some of the details we heard about at Computex, or confirmations of previous rumors that we don’t have any concrete evidence for. Given the conversations we had at Computex, and a healthy dose of critical thinking, these are the details that are likely but not confirmed. There’s always a chance we’re just blind men touching an elephant on some of these points.

First, Nova Lake. For nearly a year now, it’s been rumored that the highest-end Nova Lake SKU will scale up to 52 cores. That’s the number we heard at Computex, as well, but not as a typical flagship. Rather, we heard that Intel plans to lead Nova Lake with a 28-core flagship, which will launch at CES 2027, and introduce a high-end 52-core model later in the year. The timeframe we heard was Computex 2027, but if anything is subject to change, it’s a release date that’s a year away. For now, let’s call it later in 2027.

The 52-core SKU will apparently come with 16 Coyote Cove P-cores, 32 Arctic Wolf E-cores, and a cluster of 4 LP-E cores; we didn’t hear that at Computex, nor anything to the contrary, but that’s what has been previously rumored. That model will reportedly come with two compute tiles, so the 28-core model with a single compute tile will likely look like an 8 + 16 + 4 split. That’s pure extrapolation at this point, however.

As for the 52-core model, we were told it comes with a PL1 of 175W and a PL4 of up to 700W. The PL1 number is what’s important here. Although that is a sizable increase over the 125W PL1 of both the 285K and 14900K, 52-core Nova Lake doesn’t sound like a direct replacement for those parts. Given the timing and extra power demands, it looks more like a spiritual successor to Intel Extreme Edition chips, targeting enthusiasts with deep pockets and the HEDT crowd.

Nova Lake is treaded ground at this point, however. Something new we learned about from Computex is “Raptor Lake Next.” After hearing the name, we asked Intel, which declined to comment on Raptor Lake Next at this time. Apparently, however, it will be the third refresh of Raptor Lake CPUs on the LGA 1700 socket, particularly targeting budget-conscious builders while Nova Lake satiates the enthusiast crowd.

There are some pieces of circumstantial evidence that point to a reintroduction of LGA 1700 CPUs. First, this has been previously rumored. In April, prolific leaker Jaykihn hinted at another Raptor Lake refresh coming in 2027. We’ve now heard that the range is called Raptor Lake Next from multiple sources, and it’s specifically coming in the first half of 2027, some months after the initial Nova Lake launch.

Additionally, multiple motherboard vendors told us that they’re ramping production of LGA 1700 motherboards, including DDR4 boards, though they didn’t say it was in relation to any new CPU releases. Intel itself has dropped a few hints, as well. Earlier in the year, Intel’s Robert Hallock said that Raptor Lake will be “abundantly available” in the market, and at Computex, Intel’s Nish Neelalojanan told Tom’s Hardware that Intel “will continue to make sure that there are products which can take care of older memory technologies.”

It would certainly make sense for Intel to refresh Raptor Lake a third time. Although data center demand is offsetting it, the decline in desktop sales from high memory prices hits Intel and AMD on the balance sheet as well. Just about everyone we spoke with at Computex talked about the state of memory prices, and Intel has a DDR4 platform that it’s still actively selling on the market. AMD, with a hard switch to DDR5 with Zen 4, has to reach back further to revitalize DDR4 options, but Intel already has a small ecosystem of DDR4 motherboards and CPUs available now, which it could easily bolster. We’ve heard that bolster is coming in the opening months of next year.

What that range looks like remains a mystery, however. It could be a proper refresh, or it could simply be an infusion of 14th-gen stock (and LGA 1700 motherboards) into the market along with new price points; both Raptor Lake generations have slowly crept up in price since the end of last year. The important thing here is that it seems Intel is targeting LGA 1700 for the lower end of the market, as Arrow Lake, with its underperformance and high price due to exclusively using DDR5, won’t provide the last-gen value bridge that previous generations have.

After Tom's Hardware originally broke the news about Raptor Lake Next, we followed up with Jaykihn, who provided a few specs.

*Naming unconfirmed by Intel, specifications rumored

The specs we've heard about are for the four SKUs above, which would comprise the main lineup of chips with integrated graphics enabled; apparently, Raptor Lake Next will include options with the iGPU disabled, as well as mobile chips. The final branding is unconfirmed, but we've heard that Intel intends to launch under the Core Ultra 200 name.

Out of the four SKUs, the 16-core Core 5 looks like Intel's breadwinner. Throughout 12th- to 14th-Gen, Intel topped out Core i5 models at 6 P-cores. You'd have to step up to a Core i7 for 8 P-cores. If these specs are correct, Intel is stepping down to an 8 P-core configuration a tier in branding, which will hopefully come with a cut to price.

What’s still up in the air

Some of the finer details of Nova Lake are still up in the air. That is, we don’t have any direct evidence for them, nor any corroboration from Computex. That’s not to say that the details here are false. Rather, we just need more information to say, for sure, that some of these details are a part of the Nova Lake lineup.

First and most obvious is bLLC, or big Last Level Cache. This is one of the earliest Nova Lake rumors that is still circulating, and for good reason. Intel hasn’t found an effective counter to AMD’s 3D V-Cache CPUs in more than four years. We’re closing in on half a decade where AMD has entirely owned the high-end of PC gaming, which has continually eaten away at Intel’s market share. bLCC is, apparently, Intel’s counter to 3D V-Cache, using its own Foveros 3D hybrid bonding to stack additional last-level cache.

Tom’s Hardware asked Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and a panel of executives at the company how it plans to address X3D CPUs, and Alex Katouzian, a 20-year Qualcomm veteran who recently joined Intel in a leadership role over the client group, said the following: “When I first came in and started reviewing road maps for the team, I was very pleasantly surprised. So, stay tuned, a very strong roadmap [is] coming, and we will be gunning for that section of the market as well. And so, please stay tuned.”

Context is important, but Katouzian is really only saying that Intel is gunning for high-end gamers with its roadmap, which, of course, it is. Otherwise, bLLC has entirely been a topic of the rumor mill. Intel has indirectly teased it with PR hits about its packaging capabilities, but that extends far beyond bLLC. Hybrid bonding, especially from a foundry perspective, has far greater legs in the data center.

Although Intel has the packaging and bonding capabilities, the scale of them for a mass-market product like Nova Lake is questionable. Intel would need to bond the SRAM to the logic tile with Forveros and package the chip with EMIB, creating the “EMIB 3.5D” combination that Intel has talked about previously. We first saw EMIB 3.5D on the Ponte Vecchio data center GPU, but most recently and relevantly on Clearwater Forest, Intel’s first foray into putting 18A in the data center. The capability is there, but if Intel can scale that up to a consumer range with more limited die space and higher per-core performance remains to be seen.

One advantage of Intel’s hybrid bonding and advanced packaging is that it can package dies from other foundries, not just those from Intel foundries. That brings us to the second finer point about Nova Lake, which is the node. Originally, the assumption was that Intel would use 18A for Nova Lake. We have 18A on mobile with Panther Lake, in the data center with Xeon 6+, but not on the desktop. Further, Intel has previously commented about reshoring its manufacturing for consumer chips after a brief stint with TSMC for logic tiles in both Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake.

Around this point last year, however, rumors started circulating that Intel is using TSMC’s N2 for Nova Lake. The source of the rumor is flimsy, however. Well-known reporter Charlie Demerjian of SemiAccurate reported in July 2025 that Intel taped out a major product. The report didn’t mention what product, what foundry, or even include “TSMC” anywhere on the page. Still, other outlets took the story, claiming that not only was Demerjian talking about Nova Lake, but also that he was talking about TSMC N2.

There are reasons Intel could use TSMC for the logic die. The company has reiterated that it’s shifting wafer capacity toward the data center, so if TSMC can fill additional capacity on the desktop, we could see TSMC on the main logic die. It’s also possible that TSMC is manufacturing other tiles on Nova Lake. Intel has consistently blended nodes in recent generations, so even if Intel were to confirm that it’s tapping TSMC for Nova Lake, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Taiwanese giant is manufacturing logic.

And, just as easily, Intel could absolutely be using TSMC for logic. That’s the point here; we really don’t know at this point, outside of vague reporting, getting swept up in the rumor mill, and taking on a life of its own. The Cinderella story for Intel would be Nova Lake on 18A, but given the struggles on 18A yields, it wouldn’t be surprising to see TSMC at the helm for Nova Lake once again.

Hurry up and wait

Intel needs a much more aggressive roadmap on the desktop than AMD, frankly, and that roadmap is starting to take shape. Although AMD and Intel compete on the finer points of performance, Team Red has almost exclusively taken market share away from Intel, quarter over quarter, for the past decade. There are only a handful of quarters in that time when AMD has lost market share, which it has always rebounded from in the quarter that follows.

Even if Intel still represents the majority of the desktop market — and it does based on the latest market research — the trend is abundantly clear. Add on top of that clear fumbles like Arrow Lake, and it’s obvious that AMD doesn’t need to move the needle much to continue swiping customers. Intel needs to make big moves to recover.

We should have more official details about those plans soon. Intel mostly sat Computex out on the consumer front, short of the Arc G3 range that, although exciting for gaming handhelds, is destined to be a niche product given the high prices of the devices those chips are going in.

For the past four years, Intel has held its Tech Tour event in the fall, taking the place of its previous Architecture Day, which took place in the late summer (most of those details have shifted to the Hot Chips conference in August). Intel has already told us that Hot Chips will have more details about Diamond Rapids, Intel’s next-gen P-core Xeons. That leaves Tech Tour for when we’ll likely get a full architectural deep dive on Nova Lake. Intel has yet to confirm Tech Tour 2026, but we have no reason to believe the company will sit out the rest of the year at this point. It also lines up with what we’re hearing about Nova Lake’s release — architectural details in the fall, a launch at CES 2027, and availability in Q1.

Regardless of when the exact dates fall, Computex made it clear that Intel is readying Nova Lake for a release soon. Multiple motherboard vendors brought Z990 motherboards to Computex and actively showed them to the press; I can’t imagine that was sanctioned by Intel.

As for Raptor Lake Next, Computex is the first quasi-confirmation we’ve heard of the range. That name apparently appears on Intel’s roadmap at some point in the first half of next year. With Nova Lake at the high-end and Raptor Lake Next in the midrange, Intel might have a one-two punch strategy to earn back some spots in the market, especially as AMD turns its Zen 6 focus toward the data center and prioritizes older architectures on desktop, given high DDR5 prices. Now, we just need to wait and see how those internal plans materialize as the rest of the year goes on.