Intel Nova Lake Desktop CPUs Could Feature Over 10% Single-Thread & 60% Multi-Threaded Increase, Leadership Gaming Performance

Potential Intel Nova Lake CPU performance figures are now roaming the internet, stating over 10% ST and 60% MT performance increase.

Rumored Intel Nova Lake CPU Performance Evaluation Reveals Over 10% ST & 60% MT, Said To Offer Ultimate Performance, Efficiency & Leadership Gaming Performance

A snippet from an internal Intel slide is currently doing the rounds over the internet, which is for Intel’s next-generation Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs. There’s credibility to this image, though we will still ask our readers to take it with a grain of salt since the numbers are based on predictions from the Intel team. The final figures can be higher or lower.

So, starting with the image shared by @G_melo_ding, it looks like Intel is aiming for greater than 10% Single-Threaded gains and over 60% multi-threaded performance with its next-gen Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs. Now, do keep in mind that the 10% figure is for the single-threaded performance, and not IPC. The Nova Lake-S CPUs feature the latest Coyote Cove P-Cores and Arctic Wolf E-Cores, both of which are new architectures and expected to deliver big gains.

The image doesn’t make it clear if Intel is comparing Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs against Arrow Lake-S or Raptor Lake-S. The Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs brought an 8% increase in single-thread, and a 15% increase in multi-core performance versus Raptor Lake-S. The single-core performance seems like it is in line with the gains that we can see over the Arrow Lake-S lineup, and the multi-core gains should also be in line with that, considering that Nova Lake-S brings up to 52 cores vs just 24 cores on Arrow Lake-S top SKUs.

• Nova Lake-S ST/MT Uplift Versus Arrow Lake-S? = >10% / >60%
• Arrow Lake-S ST/MT Uplift Versus Raptor Lake-S = +8% / +15%

According to Intel, the chips are being designated as the “Ultimate Performance and Efficiency” package with “Leadership Gaming Performance”. So Nova Lake-S might just be able to tackle AMD’s current Ryzen lineup, though by the time of its release, the chips will be competing with next-gen Ryzen’s based on the Zen 6 core architecture.

There’s also a mention of the new Low-Power Island, which will feature 4 LP-E cores based on the same Arctic Wolf architecture. On the side, X user Meng, who slightly misinterpreted the same image, also alleges that there would be big LLC (bLLC) variants with the Core Ultra 9 offering up to 180 MB of LLC and Core Ultra 7 SKUs offering up to 144 MB of LLC. For comparison, AMD’s Ryzen 9 CPUs offer up to 128 MB of L3, while the Ryzen 7 SKUs offer up to 96 MB of L3 cache. The following is a comparison of what we can expect:

• Core Ultra 9 with bLLC = Up To 180 MB
• Ryzen 9 with 3D V-Cache = Up To 128 MB
• Core Ultra 7 with bLLC = Up To 144 MB
• Ryzen 7 with 3D V-Cache = Up To 96 MB

In a previous post, it was reported that Intel’s bLLC Nova Lake-S SKUs will come in two configs, the 8+16 and 8+12, with four additional LP-E cores and TDPs of 125W.  The top Intel Nova Lake-S Desktop CPU is expected to be a “Core Ultra 9” part, and as per previous information, it looks like we are indeed looking at a massive core count. The chip will feature 52 cores in total, which will be a combination of 16 P-Cores, 32 E-Cores, and 4 additional LP-E cores.

For comparison, the current top SKU, the Core Ultra 9 285K, features 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores for a total of 24 cores, and there are no additional LP-E cores. This is a 2.16x increase in the total number of cores, 2x more P-cores & E-cores. The CPU will be a top-bin with up to 150W PL1 TDP.

Top Nova Lake vs Arrow Lake Desktop CPUs:

• 2.16x More Cores (NVL-S)
• 2.16x More Threads (NVL-S)
• 4 Additional LP-E Cores per chip
• Up To 150W TDP

Intel’s Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs are expected to launch in 2026 on the latest Intel LGA 1954 socket, so there’s still some time before we get to see the new chips in action. We will probably get Arrow Lake-S refresh as the last LGA 1851 socketed offering before it, but that shouldn’t be that exciting unless we get to see some major gains, which are unexpected since they will share the same architecture as the existing chips with minor updates. Since Panther Lake will be Core Ultra 300, we can expect Nova Lake-S to fall under the Core Ultra 400 family.

Nova Lake-S vs Arrow Lake-S