Rocket Lake is here! Some might say, “about time”. We say, let the games begin.

Intel’s 11^th Generation Intel Core processor for Desktop systems, while inevitable, seems to be something that should have come a while ago. Then again, taking their time to introduce a new product after the big game changer that was AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 series processor could be a smart thing to do. So here is the new Rocket Lake processors that has been teased and highly expected since the end of 2020.

500 Series Chipsets

The introduction of the new Rocket Lake processors also means that there is a new on-board chipset to pair to, as usual with Intel. Intel’s new 500 series chipset adds support for PCIe 4.0, which also means you can now take full advantage of new PCIe Gen 4.0 devices like the newer NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series and AMD Radeon 6000 sieres GPUs. It also means you can get the newer, faster PCIe 4.0 SSDs to work with too. Of course, there is some new improvements in Intel Optane Memory.

The new chipset is also supposed to open up more USB bandwidth on the new boards too, which also means more USB lanes and faster ports. You also get to put in faster memory modules at DDR4-3200. The new 500 series chipset also allows memory overclocking on the H570 and B560 chipsets, so you are less restricted when you have a budget to work with.

Back to the new processing chips. Of course, the are not just launching a single Intel Core i9-11900K. The range topper is coming with a whole slew of Intel Core processors from the low-end, low-power Core i3-10105T with four cores and eight threads all the way to the superpower that is the flagship Core i9-11900K. The new Rocket Lake launch also include the launch of the new Pentium series with the Pentium Gold G6605 two core processor leading the way.

More Power

As per usual, Intel’s big focus on the new processors that were introduced is gaming. The headline figures for the class leading Intel Core i9-11900K unlocked processor is eight cores, 16 threads, and 16MB of Intel Smart Cache. The flagship chip clocks at up to 5.3GHz on Thermal Velocity Boost. Most games these days have not been able to capitalise on high multicore clocks too, so the Intel Rocket Lake platform processors are still expected to perform very well.

Of course, the new Rocket Lake Core processor will come with Intel’s UHD graphics with enhanced Intel X^e graphics architecture. Intel’s X^e GPU architecture pretty much has proven itself in the mobile computing space. It also means you technically can game on the on-board graphics. Intel claims 50% more graphics performance over the older generation Intel UHD Graphics. They also claim up to 19% generational improvement on the overall IPC performance. That is one of the larger leaps in terms of generational performance in Intel’s line-up. Oddly enough, the 11^th Generation Core processors are still built on top of 12nm technology instead of AMD’s cutting-edge 7nm technology. AMD has also touted 5nm technology in their next Ryzen series.

Price and Availability

The biggest surprise from Intel’s new generation of processors though is their price tag. This time, their offering their CPUs at lower prices than their competitors. The range topping Core i9-11900K for example will be sold at US$ 539 (MYR 2,220*), US$ 10 (MYR 41*) cheaper than its competition the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X at US$ 549 (MYR 2,261*). The Core i5-11600K, which would most likely be the processor of choice for most users will sell at US$ 262 (MYR 1,079*), a whopping US$ 30 (MYR 124*) less than AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X at US$ 299 (MYR 1,231*).

Intel’s 11^th Generation Rocket Lake Core processors for desktop is announced to be available later in March 2021. There are no solid leads regarding its local (Malaysia) availability just yet. That also means there are no official pricing locally just yet. Of course, we will keep you posted. For more information, you can head to Intel’s website.

*Approximate value based on conversion rate US$ 1.00 = MYR 4.12 on xe.com as of 17/03/2021