Intel Rocket Lake and Alder Lake processors spotted in the wild

Recently, Intel offered a high-level view of the upcoming Rocket Lake processors based on the Cypress Cove architecture. Intel is also expected to launch the hybrid Alder Lake architecture later next year. Now, it looks like we are getting to see the first leaked photos of both Rocket Lake and Alder Lake processors in the wild.

A photo of an alleged Rocket Lake processor was leaked recently by Wing Tseung on Facebook. It is likely that the processor will have a 11-series nomenclature such as a Core i9-11900K. According to Intel, Rocket Lake will use up to eight Ice Lake CPU cores (16 threads) backported to 14 nm along with an Xe iGPU. Intel said that Rocket Lake can offer double-digit percentage IPC improvements while also bringing in support for PCIe Gen4.

Coming up in the later half of 2021 is Intel's Alder Lake — a hybrid CPU architecture featuring a combination of Golden Cove (big) and Gracemont (small) cores. Last month, we have exclusively detailed some of the features that can be expected in Alder Lake-S and Alder Lake-P. Now, Videocardz seems to have acquired a photo of what appears to be an Alder Lake processor. The Alder Lake CPU has 500 more pins (LGA 1700 socket) than Rocket Lake and thus is about 45 mm tall compared to the 37.5 mm height of an LGA 1200 part.

From what we know so far, the top-end Alder Lake SKU (Core i9-12900K?) will feature 16 cores (8+8) and 24 threads (only the Golden Cove cores support hyperthreading). Alder Lake is also expected to bring support for PCIe Gen5 and DDR5-4400 RAM.