Intel’s CPU department is admittedly a bit messy at the moment, having just dealt with Arrow Lake performance issues at launch, and degradation issues that happened on previous generation chips before that. However, leaks indicate that the chipmaker is looking to mount a comeback with Nova Lake processors with core counts to match.
Intel Nova Lake Up To 48 Cores?
In a now-deleted comment thread on Reddit (and later picked up @9550pro on X/Twitter), one purportedly reliable leaker ‘Exist50’ claimed that Team Blue will be doubling core counts for Nova Lake desktop (NVL-SK), though there’s bit more nuance beyond that.
The new implementation will allegedly see the chipmaker using two identical core clusters, as the core count is said to be 2x8P+2x16E, instead of 16P+32E by conventional wisdom. The likely explanation for that is Intel has settled with 8P+16E for a full CPU tile, and Nova Lake-SK will be using two identical CPU tiles in similar fashion to how AMD Ryzen processors are constructed (using chiplets).
Beyond the desktop variant, the rumor also suggests that the high-end mobile variants, NVL-HX, will stick to a conventional 8P+16E configuration; low-power variants of the lineup like NVL-S/NVL-H is said to feature up to 4P+8E cores, while the smallest member of the Nova Lake family (NVL-U) will max out at just 4 P-cores, with no E-cores present.
Earlier leaks have suggested that Nova Lake will feature new core architectures as well, with Coyote Cove responsible for P-cores and Arctic Wolf architecture powering the new E-cores. The silicon is likely to be manufactured under TSMC 2nm or Intel 18A nodes, though nothing has been confirmed officially for now – aside from the 2026 launch date.
Pokdepinion: Let’s hope it’s more than just brute forcing the core counts because the silicon might be huge with two compute dies stuffed together.
