It’s been almost three years since Raptor Lake, the last Intel architecture the company built wholly using its own process nodes. The brand’s at least partly relied on TSMC to manufacture its processors since, with a mantra of returning to homegrown CPUs in due time. Unfortunately, it seems Nova Lake may not be the homecoming we’ve been waiting for.
Following recent reports of poor Intel 18A yields, leaks have come to light that Team Blue may only use its latest process for one Nova Lake configuration. More worryingly for confidence in the node, we’re not talking high-end SKUs.
According to YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID), Intel is planning five core configurations for Nova Lake. The leaker claims that the four higher-end SKUs will use TSMC N2P, while Intel 18A will tackle entry-level SKUs.
MLID provides further details on the makeup of these configurations. They corroborate previous rumours of enormous core counts and the advent of 3D V-Cache challenger, bLLC.
| Configuration | Process |
|---|---|
| Flagship (16P+32E+4LPE, bLLC) | TSMC N2P |
| Premium (8P+16E+4LPE, bLLC) | TSMC N2P |
| Mainstream (8P+16E+4LPE) | TSMC N2P |
| Budget (4P+8E+4LPE) | TSMC N2P |
| Entry (4P+0E+4PLE) | Intel 18A |
To be fair to Intel, having at least one configuration with its own process node is an improvement over Arrow Lake. That current-generation architecture remains wholly TSMC-based, save for the base title made with Intel 16.
With that said, using Intel 18A for the bottom of the barrel SKUs doesn’t exactly instil confidence in the process. This is important, as the company’s CEO has made clear that nodes must attract external demand or risk the chop. If you want to attract customers, you don’t outsource the manufacturing of your own high-end processors.
Of course, the above remains rumour for the moment. Nova Lake likely won’t arrive on the scene until 2026 at the earliest, so it’ll be a while yet before we get an official word from Intel on the matter of manufacturing nodes.
However Nova Lake shapes up, it’ll need to go toe-to-toe with Zen 6. Intel has its work cut out for itself, as AMD is apparently targeting surprisingly high clock speeds in addition to bolstering core and cache.
In the meantime, be sure to follow Club386 on Google News so you don’t miss a crumb of CPU news, rumours, and leaks.
