Intel Nova Lake desktop CPUs rumored to pack as many as 16 P-cores and 32 E-Cores for a total of 48 threads

The latest Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 desktop CPUs did not convince gamers to make the jump from the older i9-14900K models, as the new architecture appears to offer no significant performance uplift, even after a few months of code updates. However, it seems that Arrow Lake is only paving the way for future generations like Nova Lake scheduled for 2026.

Intel did not provide any spec details for Nova Lake in the latest quarterly earnings report, but co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus sneaked in the fact that “Nova Lake will actually have die both inside and outside for that process. So you'll actually see compute tiles inside and outside,” immediately prompting some speculative posts on Reddit regarding possible core count for the next gen chips.

According to Exist50 on Reddit (posts already deleted), the high-end Nova Lake desktop CPUs should feature up to 2x8 Coyote Cove P-cores + 2x16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, which seems in line with the double compute tiles suggested by Intel’s co-CEO.

Exist50 claims that there will also be high-end mobile Nova Lake chips with 8P + 16E core configurations, as well as mid-range desktop and mobile variants with only 4P + 8E cores, plus ULV versions with just 4 P-cores and no E-cores.

Still unclear what iGPU tile will be used for Nova Lake, but the chips are going to be produced on the Intel 18A nodes just like the Panther Lake mobile processors launching in late 2025.