Intel Comet Lake-S Launch …. yes, you have heard it right… So, it’s official, launch with its Z490 motherboards. One of the enormous questions, however, hasn’t been explicitly surrounding Comet Lake-S with the Z490 platform. Instead, it’s successor, Rocket Lake-S.
As part of the official launch announcement video, Gigabyte may have inadvertently let some big news slip. Z490 will support Intel’s 11th-gen processor.
Intel Rocket Lake-S
In the video uploaded via Videocardz, it seems clear that the Gigabyte representative wasn’t specific if they’re technically allowed to answer the question or otherwise.
Being placed on the spot, the representative had to cover that Rocket Lake-S is going to work on the Z490 motherboard.
A semi-surprising bit of confirmation as Intel does have a well-deserved reputation for mixing up motherboard socket designs with their major CPU launches.
Why So Curious?
One of the most significant question marks over Intel’s Comet Lake-S platform surrounds the business of PCI-e 4.0. While most manufacturers say it will offer support for it. It’s still more than a little doubtful as to exactly how far that will go.
Many people in the industry have already started turning towards Tiger Lake-S is a more logical long-term upgrade option, mainly because Tiger Lake-S is expected to release next year.
The cat has now come out of the bag in terms of the Z490 compatibility. We have Gigabyte to thank you for it!
Rocket Lake – Microarchitectures – Intel
- codename : Rocket Lake
- core count : 4
- designer : Intel
- full page name : intel/microarchitectures/rocket lake
- instance of : microarchitecture
- instruction set architecture : x86-64
- manufacturer : Intel
- microarchitecture type : CPU
- name : Rocket Lake
- pipeline stages (max) : 19
- pipeline stages (min) : 14
- process : 14 nm (0.014 ?m, 1.4e-5 mm)
If Ryzen 4000 desktop processors are going to see the users as they are coming out in 2020 as promised by AMD itself – with the CPU grapevine. This could happen as early as October. Intel probably is looking at needing a quick reply.
Another interesting point is that the engineering sample in the leak is an 8-core chip. It could be the flagship model for Rocket Lake. Comet Lake has pushed to 10-cores. Rocket Lake will take a step backward, returning to an 8-core flagship.
Remember that Rocket Lake is built on 14nm (again). Intel will be struggling to eke mileage out of this now seriously aged process. We’ve heard rumors about the difficulties with keeping Comet Lake’s purported power usage in check. It is pushing clock speeds to new heights to get the required performance boosts.
Rocket Lake will offer advancements. It will have to in some manner, not through a new process.
Although we’ve been talking about exactly how far Intel can realistically push 14nm with the incoming Comet Lake with the apparent issues there. You’ve got to wonder exactly where something might give in trying to keep up with the undoubtedly hot pace of Ryzen releases, to keep going with a generation further than that.