Eye-watering Intel Nova Lake 52-core flagship CPU power consumption leaks

Intel’s next-generation Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs are reportedly landing later this year. With up to 52 total cores and 288 MB of bLLC, Intel Nova Lake desktop chips might finally be able to bring the fight to AMD and its upcoming Zen 6 CPU family. However, as we’ve mentioned previously, the combination of 52 cores and 288 MB of last-level cache is likely to be super expensive.

Kopite7kimi now reports that, in addition to the increased price, the K-series Nova Lake desktop, likely the 52-core part, could consume more than 700 W under full load. This 700+ W power consumption is reportedly with the power limits removed. So, expect a much lower but still significant PL2 power limit.

This is an absurdly high figure for a client CPU targeted towards regular consumers and gamers. However, kopite7kimi advises consumers to treat this as a High-End Desktop (HEDT) platform, rather than the usual flagship consumer CPU, such as the Core Ultra 9 285K (Available on Amazon).

Indeed, if we compare the 700+ W power consumption of Nova Lake to Intel Arrow Lake, it comes across as an astronomical increase over the current Arrow Lake CPUs. The Core Ultra 9 285K, for instance, consumed a max of 356 W in our Cinebench R15 multi-core test. Even the notoriously power-hungry Core i9-14900K topped at 548 W in the same test. So, with a power consumption of 700+ W, the 52-core Intel Nova Lake-S flagship will look like a crazy gambit as a non-HEDT CPU.

However, if we compare this to the current crop of HEDT platforms, like the Intel Xeon W-2400/W-3400 series and the Ryzen Threadripper 9000X processors, the proposed power consumption starts to make more sense.

Whatever the case ends up being, it is quite clear that if you want the 52-core Nova Lake-S CPU when it launches, be prepared to spend a pretty penny for both the CPU and a beefy cooling system.