Fresh Intel Nova Lake leak fills out the details on the range of Core Ultra 400-series CPUs we can expect to see later this year

You can always tell when an exciting new bit of PC tech is getting nearer to launch, because all the various leaks and rumours get increasingly more comprehensive and detailed. That’s very much the case with the latest drop for Intel’s Nova Lake chips, because now we have a look at what the full range of Core Ultra 400-series processors is going to look like.

Well, that’s according to Videocardz, which says it’s been shown a new roadmap for NVL-S, the next generation of desktop processors from Intel, which will be officially listed as Series 4, or Core Ultra 400S. As there has already been a wealth of leaks about the forthcoming chips, much of this information isn’t especially new, but seeing all tied together and with snippets of details for the range of SKUs is interesting.

Just as with the current ARL-S (Arrow Lake) chips, and every other generation of Intel processors before it, Core Ultra 400S CPUs will come in a wide range of varieties for different segments: 125 W for general scenarios and gaming, plus 65 W and 35 W models for office and embedded applications.

PC gamers are most likely to be interested in the usual Core Ultra 9, 7, and 5 chips, and at first glance, it just seems to be the same as it has always been. The series leading 9-class models will sport nine Coyote Cove P-cores, 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, and four Low Power E-cores (LPE).

Dropping down a tier to the 7-class will mean saying goodbye to four E-cores, and going further down the order to the 5-class results in losing two P-cores as well.

So, just as with Arrow Lake, then (though these don’t have LPE-cores). However, where things get spicy are the bLLC variants, of which there is one apiece in the 9 and 7-class tiers. These are generally expected to be Intel’s answer to AMD’s X3D processors, as the bLLC is a monstrous slab of ‘last level cache’, purported to be up to 144 MB in size (for comparison, the 3D V-Cache slice in the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is 64 MB).

Could a bLLC-equipped Core Ultra 400S chip knock AMD off the top slot of PC gaming CPUs? (Image credit: Future)

Whether a 7-class CPU gets that much additional L3 cache is anyone’s guess, but I would reckon that Intel is looking to have a better separation between its Nova Lake SKUs than in Arrow Lake, so the full 144 MB might be reserved purely for Core Ultra 9 processors.

Now, so far, I’ve not said anything about the ‘dual compute tile’ models. That’s because Videocardz’s source for all of this information is apparently saying that Intel has yet to declare the brand nomenclature for the 44 and 52-core CPUs. This means these are unlikely to be sold as Core Ultra 9 chips, for example, and it’s possible that Intel may choose to revive its X-series branding from 2017/2019.

The likes of the Core i9 10980XE Extreme Edition were huge, very expensive processors, with up to 18 cores and with quad-channel memory support. Purely for the HEDT (high-end desktop) market, such chips were for workstations and applications that required more threads than a ‘normal’ CPU could offer, but less than you’d get from a full-blown Xeon chip.

This is precisely what AMD’s Threadripper chips are for, though as impressive as they are, they’re really not for gaming at all.

(Image credit: Intel)

Anyway, Videocardz also says that the leak confirms some other aspects about the Core Ultra 400-series, such as that the processors will still only have a maximum of 24 PCIe lanes available for graphics cards, SSDs, and other components (the same as Arrow Lake), but Nova Lake will support Thunderbolt 5, rather than 4, with up to 120 Gbps of transfer speed and 240 W of charging.

Assuming all of this is correct (and at this stage in the rumour mill, it almost certainly is), the only important pieces of information that are unknown are clock speeds, prices, and the all-important release date. Take your best guesses at those, folks.