MSI published information about Intel Rocket Lake S CPU in press release
MSI published information about an Intel Rocket Lake S engineering sample in a press release. The press release included CPU-Z screenshots, showing that the processor in question has eight 14nm cores with hyperthreading.
The press release has since been removed, but was noticed by then Twitter user Harukaze5719 and VideoCardz. According to the CPU-Z screenshot, the CPU has a base clock of 3.4GHz, although the chip in the screenshot runs at 4.3GHz. Assuming the core multiplier, which appears to be a maximum of 50, the maximum turbo frequency may be 5.0GHz at a bus speed of 100MHz. For example, with the 10900K, the multiplier is a maximum of 51, which corresponds to the turbo 2.0 frequency of 5.1GHz from Intel’s specifications.
It is not yet known whether these clock speeds are final, as it concerns an engineering sample. There is a chance that the clock speeds of the release model differ. According to the screenshot, the tdp is 125W and the vcore voltage shown is 1.15V.
The screenshot also shows that the Rocket Lake CPU in question has eight cores and sixteen threads. Intel’s current Comet Lake-S CPUs come with a maximum of ten cores, but Intel previously confirmed that this number will be reduced to a maximum of eight cores with the Rocket Lake generation. The upcoming chips will also be produced at 14nm, according to CPU-Z. Previous rumors already spoke of a 14nm backport of Intel’s Willow Cove cores. They are already used in Intel’s 10nm laptop processors, but are made for Rocket Lake on a 14nm process, according to rumors.
Furthermore, the CPU-Z listing shows that the chip supports some new instructions, including the AVX512 Foundation extension. A SHA extension is also added to the CPU, with which the chip can accelerate SHA cryptography hardware. This extension was already included in Intel’s Ice Lake laptop chips and Goldmond socs, but Rocket Lake will be the company’s first line of desktop processors with such support.
The Rocket Lake CPU in question runs on a current Z490 motherboard with socket LGA-1200, as expected. Intel will release its new processors in the first quarter of 2021. A concrete release date has not yet been stated. In addition to the aforementioned additions, the Rocket Lake series will also receive support for PCIe 4.0.
Furthermore, MSI’s press release stated that Z490 motherboards will receive support for Resizable BAR, while other LGA-1200 motherboards are to follow later. This feature is incorporated into the PCIe standard and is also known as Smart Access Memory, which is the marketing term used by AMD for this feature. Resizable BAR allows CPUs to access the full amount of memory of a video card at one time. AMD previously added the feature to its Ryzen 5000 CPUs and claims performance improvements of up to 11 percent in some games.
The CPU-Z screenshots of Intel’s Rocket Lake CPU. Image from MSI via VideoCardz