Exorbitant Intel Nova Lake price and monstrous specs leak with 52 cores, 288 MB bLLC, and 15% IPC uplift for P-cores

It is now an open secret that Intel’s next major desktop architecture, Nova Lake, will feature big Last-Level Cache or bLLC. We reported previously that this 144 MB bLLC could show up on only one SKU. We also noted that the chances for dual-bLLC were slim. 

However, RedGamingTech now claims that Intel could release Nova Lake CPUs with dual-bLLC, resulting in a massive amount of L3 cache. Moreover, the bLLC appears to be making its way to more Nova Lake SKUs than previously rumored, according to information revealed by Haze2K1 on X.

The Intel Nova Lake CPUs with bLLC are reportedly as follows:

• A flagship 52-core SKU with 16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores
• A high-end 42-core SKU with 14 P-cores, 24 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores
• A mainstream 28-core SKU with 8 P-cores, 16 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores
• An entry-level 24-core SKU with 8 P-cores, 12 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores

Intel Nova Lake performance and price

In a video covering Razer Lake, Titan Lake, and more, RedGamingTech claims to have heard that Nova Lake’s Coyote Cove P-cores bring a 15% IPC performance uplift over Arrow Lake’s Lion Cove P-cores. The leaker also suggests that the Arctic Wolf E-cores on the Nova Lake are also quite good without divulging any specific IPC number.

What might not be so good, however, is the potential price of flagship/high-end Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs with dual-bLLC. RGT reports that the dual-chiplet 52-core and 42-core Nova Lake-S CPUs with 288 MB of bLLC could end up costing $1,200 or more. 

Just to put this into perspective, the Arrow Lake flagship Core Ultra 9 285K had an MSRP of $589 when it launched in 2024. So, the Core Ultra 9 400 Nova Lake-S SKU with 288 MB of bLLC could be more than double the price.

That said, the price hike makes sense, since the NVL-S flagship seemingly has more than double the cores (52 vs 24) and 288 MB of bLLC, which is bound to be quite expensive. AMD only offers 64 MB of 3D V-Cache on the latest Ryzen 7 9800X3D. So, even Intel’s lower-end Core Ultra 5 400K CPUs with 144 MB bLLC reportedly come with 225% more last-level cache.

As is often the case with CPU and GPU pricing, things can change at the drop of a hat. So, as RGT also mentions, take the Nova Lake price suggested here as just an interesting speculation and not anything reliable.

We’ll have to wait and see how big a difference such a huge cache buffer makes for the Nova Lake chips and how these CPUs are priced. Until then, take the information presented here with an abundance of caution.

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