Intel is reportedly developing a Nova Lake-AX architecture that will produce high-end SoCs, packing cores, cache, and beefy integrated graphics. More specifically, rumours claim these processors will feature up to 52 CPU cores and an Xe3 graphics tile, and should appear on both desktops and mobile.
Nova Lake-AX should naturally share many similarities with Nova Lake-S and Nova Lake-HX, with all three architectures sporting two compute tiles. Each should sport up to eight Coyote Cove P-cores, 16 Arctic Wolf E-cores, and a separate island housing four Low-Power E-Cores, for a total of 52 cores.
Where Nova Lake-AX will diverge from sibling architectures is through integrated graphics. Rumours suggest the architecture will offer double the amount of Xe cores, making it a proper all-in-one solution for gaming handhelds, laptops, and desktops.
Preliminary
Nova Lake -AX
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) July 16, 2025
Furthermore, these processors apparently also bundle a separate cache-enhanced title that adds over 100MB of L3 bLLC cache. This is accessible to both CPU cores and Celestial Xe3 iGPU, the latter of which should offer up to 24 Xe3 cores.
Should these rumours hold true, it seems Intel’s interests lie in giving AMD a proper challenge in the APU space. We’ve already seen some worthwhile efforts through Lunar Lake, in handhelds such as MSI Claw 8 AI+ and laptops. However, Nova Lake-AX should take things up by quite a notch.
Nova Lake-S should arrive first sometime in 2026, with H and HX variants following shortly after, leaving AX as the coup de grâce. We should expect official words from Intel on all things Nova Lake closer to launch, but these leaks indicate the APU market could seen heat up.
