Intel is reportedly set to reintroduce AVX-512 instruction on its next-gen consumer Nova Lake CPUs. According to regular (and often reliable) Intel hardware leaker jaykihn0 on X, the company is set to support this feature on not only its performance-focused P-Cores in Nova Lake, but also its efficiency-optimised E-Cores.
If this leak is correct, it means Intel has changed its mind regarding AVX-512 support, which remained exclusive to its Xeon Scalable (server) and Xeon W (workstation) platforms for the last five years. The last consumer desktop CPU series with official AVX-512 support was the 11th-gen Rocket Lake desktop lineup, released back in 2021.
While AVX-512 was initially available on 12th-gen Alder Lake chips, Intel quickly removed it via a BIOS update, marking its end on mainstream Core CPUs. The following 13th-gen Raptor Lake and 14th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh lacked AVX-512 support too, exactly at a time when AMD started supporting it on its Zen 4 and Zen 5 processors.
AVX-512 (Advanced Vector Extensions 512-bit) is a set of CPU instructions that allow a processor to perform the same operation on many pieces of data simultaneously (512 bits). It’s an example of SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) processing, which, depending on the workload, can provide anywhere from a modest to substantial improvement.
While AVX-512 isn’t mandatory for client software and games, it was a handy feature for some niche applications, such as video and file compression (HandBrake/7-Zip) or AI image/video enhancement (Topaz). By removing it, Intel forced users of these packages to either switch platforms or take a performance hit, as the software reverted back to AVX or AVX2. The latter could drop performance by 40% or more, depending on the app and workload. For example, a recent report from Phoronix showed up to a 43% improvement in Linux RAID bandwidth by moving from AVX to AVX-512 instructions.
For this reason, bringing back AVX-512 instructions with Nova Lake is a big deal. Better yet, according to the leaker, Nova Lake should get AVX-512 support on both its Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores, which wasn’t the case on 12th-gen CPUs while they supported these instructions. What’s more, there are rumours of 52-core Nova Lake CPUs in the works, 32 of which are E-Cores, so we could be looking at immense performance in the future.
