In a world where computing is pervasive and intelligence is distributed across every surface - from the cloud to the network to the intelligent edge - Intel today at CES 2021 highlighted how it is driving technology leadership to define the future of computing for people, business and society. To help people navigate through this extraordinary time, Intel introduced new processors for business, education, mobile and gaming computing platforms - all designed to offer the premium PC experiences people deserve, with the most choices and no limits.

"Only Intel has the breadth of products spanning multiple architectures; the large, open ecosystem; sheer scale of manufacturing footprint; and deep technical expertise customers need to unlock opportunities in this era of distributed intelligence," said Intel Executive Vice President Gregory Bryant. "With an intense focus on execution for our core products and across our broader portfolio, we're introducing a series of leadership products at CES with more following throughout the year."

Hot on the heels of its Geekbench score leak, we have PassMark numbers for the upcoming Core i7-11700K "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processor, leaked to the web. The PassMark online score database lists performance obtained from a single i7-11700K sample, where it's shown to be trading blows with the Ryzen 7 5800X (score averaged from over 600 samples). The Intel chip scores 3548 points single-thread rating, compared to 3509 (average) of the 5800X, while its multi-threaded score of 54255 points falls short of the 54458 points of the 5800X (average). Both these chips are 8-core/16-thread.

The Core i7-11700K has the same core configuration as the top i9-11900K part, but with lower rumored clock speeds. The Core i7 ticks at 3.60 GHz base, with up to 5.00 GHz boost, and the same 125 W TDP rating as its 10th Gen predecessor. The "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processor family sees Intel's first IPC uplift to the client-desktop platform in 5 years, on the backs of new "Cypress Cove" CPU cores. While we haven't seen evidence of core-counts above 8 for these processors, Intel's play will be to restore gaming performance leadership that it lost to AMD's Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" processors. Plagued by scalping and limited availability to genuine customers, AMD stares at its performance leadership not translating into brand equity before Intel's next-gen parts flood the market.

Intel is preparing to launch their latest generation Rocket Lake-S processors in the coming weeks. We recently saw some leaked Geekbench 5 scores for the eight-core Intel Core i7-11700K showing it beating the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X in single-core performance. We have recently received some new benchmarks for the i9-11900K and i7-11700K this time in CPU-Z showing them once again best AMD in single-core performance.

The Cypress Cove core design found in these upcoming processors is expected to bring double-digit IPC gains over Skylake and this is reflected in these scores. Take all these benchmarks with a healthy dose of skepticism as we have no way of confirming these numbers until we can test the chips ourselves. The Intel Core i9-11900K gets a single thread score of 695.4 and a multi-thread score of 6522.1 which puts it 19% ahead of the i9-10900K and 3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X in single-threaded performance. The processor still falls far behind the Ryzen 9 5950X in multi-threaded performance due to it having half the number of cores.

Intel's 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processors could feature similar TDP values to their 10th Gen "Comet Lake-S" predecessors, according to Momomo_us. Intel is preparing to give the Unlocked "K" and "KF" SKUs a TDP rating of 125 W, while the locked non-K models feature 65 W rating. The lineup is led by the 8-core/16-thread Core i9-11900K, followed by the locked i9-11900 and iGPU-devoid i9-11900F; the slightly slower 8-core/16-thread Core i7-11700K, followed by the i7-11700KF, i7-11700, and i7-11700F; and the 6-core/12-thread i5-10600K and its derivatives.

The 11th Gen Core desktop processor series arrives in Q1 2021, and is based on the 14 nm "Rocket Lake-S" silicon, and built into the Socket LGA1200 package, with backwards compatibility with Intel's 400-series chipset motherboards, and native support for the Intel 500-series. The "Rocket Lake-S" die is rumored to feature up to 8 "Cypress Cove" CPU cores, a dual-channel DDR4 memory controller, a 24-lane PCI-Express 4.0 root complex, and an updated Gen12 iGPU based on the Xe LP graphics architecture. The "Cypress Cove" CPU cores are reportedly 14 nm back-ports of the "Willow Cove" cores, and feature a double-digit percent IPC increase over the "Skylake" cores.

Intel's upcoming 11th Generation Core i9-11900K processor boosts up to 5.30 GHz, according to rumored specs of various 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" desktop processors, sourced by Harukaze5719. According to this specs-sheet, both the Core i9-11900K and the Core i7-11700K (i7-10700K successor) are 8-core/16-thread parts, and clock-speeds appear to be the only apparent product segmentation between the two. The i9-11900K has a maximum single-core boost frequency of 5.30 GHz, and 4.80 GHz all-core boost. The i7-11700K, on the other hand, has an all-core boost of 4.60 GHz, and 5.00 GHz single-core boost. This time around, even the Core i7 part gets Thermal Velocity Boost.

11th Gen Core i5 continues to be 6-core/12-thread, with Intel allegedly readying an unlocked Core i5-11600K, and a locked i5-11400. Both parts lack TVB. The i5-11600K ticks up to 4.90 GHz single-core, and 4.70 GHz all-core; while the i5-11400 does 4.20 GHz single-core, and 4.40 GHz all-core. The secret-sauce with "Rocket Lake-S" is the introduction of the new "Cypress Cove" CPU cores, which Intel claims offer a double-digit percent IPC gain over the current-gen "Comet Lake," an improved dual-channel DDR4 memory controller with native support for DDR4-3200, a PCI-Express Gen 4 root-complex, and a Gen12 Xe-LP iGPU. The "Cypress Cove" CPU cores also feature VNNI and DLBoost, which accelerate AI DNN; as well as limited AVX-512 instructions. The 11th Gen core processors will also introduce a CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot, similar to AMD Ryzen. Intel is expected to launch its first "Rocket Lake-S" processors before Q2-2021.

An alleged Ashes of the Singularity (AotS) benchmark results page for the top 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake" processor leaked to the web courtesy TUM_APISAK. It's official now that Intel will keep its lengthy processor model number schemes, with the top part being the Core i9-11900K, a successor to the i9-10900K. It also confirms that the "Rocket Lake" silicon caps out at 8-core/16-thread, with performance on virtue of the IPC gains from the new "Cypress Cove" CPU cores."Cypress Cove" is believed to be a back-port of "Willow Cove" to the 14 nm silicon fabrication process that "Rocket Lake-S" is built on.

The screenshot also confirms the nominal clocks (base frequency) of the i9-11900K to be 3.50 GHz, as Intel tends to put base frequency in the name-string of its processors. Paired with a GeForce RTX 3080 and 32 GB of RAM, the i9-11900K-powered machine yielded 62.7 FPS CPU frame-rate at 1440p resolution, and 64.7 FPS CPU frame-rate at 1080p (a mere 3.18% drop in frame-rates from the increase in resolution). These numbers put the i9-11900K in the same league as the Ryzen 7 5800X in CPU frame-rates tested under similar conditions.