New leak: Scary Intel Nova Lake power consumption on cards as 496 W PL2 and 854 W PL4 surface

Thanks to a continuous supply of new leaks and rumors, we know a lot about Intel’s next-gen Nova Lake desktop CPUs, including the expected power limits. It was recently reported that, under full multi-core load, the 52-core Nova Lake-S flagship could consume more than 700 W. Later reports alleged that the PL2 power limit of Intel Nova Lake-S chips is also more than 400 W.

Leaker HXL has now leaked a table showing Nova Lake-S PL1, PL2, PL3, and PL4 power limits. The leaker claims that the figures in the table are for dual-compute-tile Nova Lake-S K-series SKUs, which top out at 52 cores.

It is immediately clear from the leaked power limit figures that the dual-compute-tile Intel Nova Lake desktop CPUs are quite demanding. With a PL1 of 150 W, a PL2 of 496 W, a PL3 of 498 W, and a PL4 of 854 W, high-end Intel Core Ultra 400 CPUs look exceedingly power hungry. The Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 285K, for instance, has a PL1 of 125 W and a PL2 of 250 W. The 14th-gen Core i9-14900K, a 6 GHz CPU notorious for abusing energy, has the same PL1 and PL2 value as the Core Ultra 9 285K.

However, leaker Jaykihn has pushed back on HXL’s claims, calling the leaked Nova Lake power limits “outdated”, an assertion also shared by UNIKO’s Hardware. More interestingly, Jaykihn alleges that these values are not for the 52-core Core Ultra 9 flagship CPU, but for the 42-core Core Ultra 7 Nova Lake SKU with 14 P-cores, 24 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores.

In other words, Intel could’ve changed, possibly lowered, the power limits of the Core Ultra 7 variant to be more in line with what we’ve come to expect from Arrow Lake CPUs.

That said, we are months away from hearing anything official about the next-gen Intel CPUs. So, always take the leaked Nova Lake specs, including power limits, with a grain of salt.

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