Intel has confirmed part of its CPU roadmap for the next two years, confirming the arrival of Panther Lake in 2025 and Nova Lake in 2026. But while Panther Lake's future in the desktop market remains uncertain, Nova Lake could shake things up with a new architecture with dual CPU tiles.
During its Q4 earnings call, Intel shed light on its upcoming processor plans. Panther Lake, the successor to the current Core Ultra 200 series, is scheduled for launch in the second half of 2025. However, Intel has not confirmed whether Panther Lake will be available for desktop PCs.
Following Panther Lake, Intel will unleash Nova Lake in 2026. Unlike its predecessor, Nova Lake has explicitly mentioned that it will have a desktop variant, suggesting a potential shift in Intel's strategy. Leaks from Reddit user Exist50 (via HXL) suggest that Nova Lake could feature a hybrid architecture with two 8P+16E tiles. These tiles are expected to combine “Coyote Cove” P-cores and “Arctic Wolf” E-cores.
Intel's Nova Lake SKUs would come for desktops (Nova Lake-SK), featuring up to 16x P-cores and 32x E-cores on two tiles. The high-end mobile (HX), mainstream mobile (H), and low-power mobile (U) variants would feature a single CPU tile. The Nova Lake-HX platform for enthusiast gaming laptops is rumoured to feature up to 8x P-cores and 16x E-cores, potentially indicating a move away from using the same dies as desktop CPUs. As for Nova Lake-S and Nova Lake-H SKUs, these would come with up to 4x P-cores and 8x E-cores. Lastly, the Nova Lake-U chips would pack up to 4x P-cores only.
During the earnings call, Intel also announced a delay for Falcon Shores, its next-generation XPU/GPU designed for the data centres. Originally intended to compete with rival AI accelerators, Falcon Shores will now be used internally as a test chip. Instead, Intel will focus on Jaguar Shores, the successor to Falcon Shores, for its next data centre offering.
KitGuru says: Do you think Panther Lake will come to the desktop, or will Intel Core Ultra's next-generation CPUs use the Nova Lake platform?