Intel’s 11th-gen ‘Rocket Lake’ desktop processors to arrive by Q1 2021

Intel has confirmed that it is preparing to launch its next-generation of desktop CPUs by early next year. The 11th-gen Rocket Lake series is expected to be available by the first quarter of 2021 and will finally bring support for PCIe 4.0, as per the official press release. Notably, Intel had announced the 11th-gen Tiger Lake mobile processors for notebooks earlier this month.

As of now, Intel has not shared any specifics of the upcoming desktop CPU range. One can, however, expect the upcoming processors to be tuned for PC gaming. According to rumors, the new chipsets could arrive by March 2021. While there is no official confirmation, it is likely that Intel will yet again make use of the same 14nm process that has been around for years. This means that just like the recently announced 11th-gen mobile processors, we could see some architectural improvements. The upcoming range is also expected to be compatible with Intel’s 400-series motherboards, allowing users to upgrade with ease. These were announced with the 10th-gen series earlier this year. The most important update will be the support for PCIe 4.0 storage, a feature that AMD has been offering with its existing line of Ryzen CPUs. Intel is also expected to make use of its new Xe graphics as well as bring support for USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4.

Intel’s (rather vague) announcement comes just a day before AMD’s special event where it is expected to showcase its new CPU range based on its Zen 3 architecture. It was probably a last-minute decision by Intel to remind potential customers that there are more products in the pipeline.

There was a time when the desktop PC space was completely dominated by Intel. However, this has changed in recent years. We now see a trend where PC builders (especially gamers) prefer AMD’s Ryzen CPUs as they offer equally good performance at lower pricing. There are also speculations that the next-gen Zen 3 based AMD processors will completely dominate the current line of 10th-gen Intel processors. This essentially means that Team Blue has a huge task at hand if it wants the 11th-gen to be a great success.

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