Intel Rocket Lake-S confirmed with PCI-Express 4.0 support
You know, it's not really that we all don't know that Rocket lake will be PCIe Gen 4.0 compatible, it's just never been confirmed. Well, it now certainly is as a database entry from Sandra is listing Rocket lake, running with a PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe SSD.
Current generation processors are Comet Lake, the following generation will be Rocket Lake (yes still at 14nm), it will support PCI-Express Gen4. With Rocket lake intel would be going back to 8-cores (that is a rumour though). The generation succeeding Rocket lake then would go upwards to 16 cores (8 large and 8 small cores, you know BIG-little.) Back to Rocket lake though, it is still based on a 14nm node and the LGA 1200 socket to be paired with the latest Z490 chipset based motherboards.
In case you've been wondering, Comet Lake-S processors (the current tenth generation of Intel Core for desktop) actually do support PCI Express 4.0, some Z490 motherboards are designed for it as well. However an issue prevents PCIe 4.0 to become usable, so the platform will support PCI-E 3.0 instead. The reason behind this is the presence of Jitter in the Z490 chipset signal, that causes instability in the data signal and that means that specifications required for the PCI-Express 4.0 certification are simply not met. PCI-E 4.0 is working at very high frequencies, and that requires that the signal be completely clean.
proof that Rocket Lake indeed is supporting PCIe gen 4.0 as spotted by @TUM_APISAK
Comet Lake is still an x4 DMI interlink (the link between the processor and chipset), Rocket Lake would likely get an x8 connection. In addition, the processor has received four additional PCIe lanes for a total of 20 from the CPU itself. The slide also mentions Thunderbolt 4, which would provide the same speeds as Thunderbolt 3, we're not quite sure what there would be new on that front though.
Kaby Lake-S | Coffee Lake-S | Comet Lake-S | Rocket Lake-S | Alder Lake-S | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fabrication Node | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm | 14nm (TBC) | (TBC) |
Launch Date | 2017 | 2018 | 2020 | (TBC) | (TBC) |
Chipset | Intel 200 | Intel 300 | Intel 400 | Intel 500 | Intel 600 |
Core Series | 7th Gen Core-S | 8th/9th Gen Core-S | 10th Gen Core-S | 11th Gen Core-S | 12th Gen Core-S |
Max Core Count | up to 4 cores | up to 8 cores | up to 10 cores | TBC | up to 16 (TBC) |
Socket | LGA1151 | LGA1151 | LGA1200 | LGA1200 (TBC) | LGA1700 (TBC) |
Memory Support | 2ch DDR4 up to 64GB | 2ch DDR4 up to 128GB | 2ch DDR4 up to 128GB | 2ch DDR4 up to (TBC) | (TBC) |
PCIe Support | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 3.0 | PCIe 4.0 | PCIe 4.0 |
CPU PCIe Lanes | 16 (3.0) | 16 (3.0) | 16 (3.0) | 20 (4.0) | (TBC) |
PCH PCIe Lanes | 24 (3.0) | 24 (3.0) | 24 (3.0) | 24 (3.0) | (TBC) |
USB | up to 10x 3.0 up to 14x 2.0 |
Z370: up to 10x 3.0 up to 14x 2.0 Z390: up to 6x 3.1 Gen2x1 up to 10x 3.1 Gen1x1 |
3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gb/s) 3.2 Gen 1×1 (5 Gb/s) 2.0 |
3.2 Gen 2×2 (20 Gb/s) 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10 Gb/s) 3.2 Gen 1×1 (5 Gb/s) |
(TBC) |
DMI | x4 3.0 | x4 3.0 | x4 3.0 | x8 3.0 | (TBC) |
Integrated WiFi | – | Wireless-AC | Wireless-AX | Wireless-AX | (TBC) |
Display Support | DisplayPort 1.2 HDMI 1.4 |
DisplayPort 1.2 HDMI 1.4 |
DisplayPort 1.2(1.4) HDMI 2.0a |
DisplayPort 1.4a HDMI 2.0b |
(TBC) |
Intel SGX Security | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | - | (TBC) |
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Senior Member
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what? oki, this is what I call fanboyism xd
Senior Member
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Joined: 2014-12-11
By the time we see an 11900k on shelves, Zen 3 will likely be out. Comparing the predicted performance of Rocket Lake to Zen 2 doesn't seem appropriate. We're not comparing the 10900k to the Ryzen 1800x...
Senior Member
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Joined: 2016-10-04
The point is will all Z490 boards support 4.0 or going to be a blanker approach "only Z590 will support 4.0 to avoid confusion".
Not something we haven't seen from Intel over the last 3 years numerous times but I would like to see all those Z490 defenders when this happens, especially knowingly upgraded to a platform that is dead next year with the 1700 socket.
Senior Member
Posts: 1211
Joined: 2010-05-12
I'm really to curious to understand how the extra 4x pci express lanes will work. I m asking this myself since day 1 of this news.
Current boards have only 16 lanes connected to the socket, for the gpu. the new cpu will have 16 + 4.
Any clue?
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Posts: 18907
Joined: 2008-08-28
Wait if there is a clock regression and going back to 8core with rocket is that Intel going backwards now?