Intel's rumored "Zen 5 killer" Nova Lake CPUs to apparently need new LGA1954 socket boards

Back in 2021, when Intel began struggling to keep up with AMD's Zen processors in efficiency and value, the company was rumored to be working on a "Zen 5 killer" that would land in 2025.

According to that report, legendary chip architect Jim Keller, who had also helped shape Zen and K12 (ARM-based), was at the helm of Intel when designing this purported Zen 5 killer known as the "Royal Core." The report also added that Royal Core would debut inside the Nova Lake lineup of processors in its "full" glory.

While the initial plan for Nova Lake was a 2025 debut, the company confirmed earlier this year that this was not happening and that Nova Lake is a year late, as it is expected to land in 2026. During its Q4 2024 earnings call, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the interim co-chief executive officer of Intel and CEO of Intel Products, said (PDF😞

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we will strengthen our client roadmap with the launch of Panther Lake, our lead product on Intel 18A, in the second half of 2025.

 

2026 is even more exciting from a client perspective as Panther Lake achieves meaningful volumes and we introduce our next-generation client family code-named Nova Lake. Both will provide strong performance across the entire PC stack with significantly better cost and margin for us, enhancing our competitive position and reinforcing our value proposition to our partners and customers.

Thus, in order to be competitive, Nova Lake must be significantly better than AMD's Zen 5 which is already available in Ryzen 9000 series parts.

Nova Lake-S, the desktop variant of Nova Lake, will apparently require a new socket dubbed LGA1954. This will succeed Intel's current LGA1851 socket (compatible with Ultra Series 2 desktop CPUs like the 285K, 265K, among others). X user Everest noticed the presence of an Interposer for Gen 5 VR (voltage regulator) test tool.

For those wondering, this tool is meant for testing and validating of the new LGA1954 socket that's meant to be paired up with the Intel Nova Lake-S desktop chips. VR test tools help assess CPU power delivery and load line before actual CPU samples are placed in sockets. It is essentially a safety measure such that healthy working chips aren't burned up due to excess voltage or current.

If you recall, we had also learned about LGA1700 from a leak of a similar nature. That was back in 2020.

In terms of core specs of Nova Lake-S, rumor has it that there could be up to 52 cores with the following configuration: 16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, and 4 LP E-cores (via Jaykihn on X), which equates to a 52-core 52-thread flagship Nova Lake-S SKU (remember that Intel no longer uses hyperthreading or SMT).

Source

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