Intel has again confirmed that its Alder Lake processors for desktop PCs and laptops are within the right direction|not off course on target to arrive in the last half of 2021, with a rumor also surfacing which contends that September is going to be the launch month.
As spotted by VideoCardz, this latter speculation comes from leaker Uniko’s Hardware on Twitter, who claims that 600-series motherboards and 12th-gen Alder Lake CPUs will theoretically arrive 6 months after Rocket Lake (which is rumored to be ready for release in March).
Of course, Intel typically features a period of around a year (or more) between the discharge of processor generations, with 6 months being a really short window indeed – so this is often perhaps one to be warier about than your average rumor. If true, those that buy 11th-gen Rocket Lake chips could perhaps be a touch miffed that their CPUs become last-gen so soon after purchase.
That said, as we mentioned at the outset, Intel has again confirmed that Alder Lake will arrive before the year is out, so even a late H2 debut will likely mean only a few more months of breathing space between generations.
That is if Intel’s intended launch schedule doesn’t slip because there’s always the likelihood that unforeseen gremlins within the works of 1 kind or another could cause a delay.
Intel’s outgoing CEO Bob Swan confirmed: “We will qualify Alder Lake desktop and notebook for production and start our volume ramp within the last half of 2021.”
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Alder Lake will employ a mixture of normal cores and low-power cores a system almost like ARM’s big.LITTLE tech with the low-power ones being more efficient and ready to run the show when the system is idling or under little stress – the thought being that battery life is often saved as a result.
That’s obviously great for laptops, but exactly where the important benefits lie on the desktop is another matter – to some extent AMD has questioned in recent times with a subtle dig at Intel’s apparent path here.
What Do We Think?
With Alder Lake-S releasing so quickly after Rocket Lake-S, it does beg the question, to those of you who still reside within the Intel CPU camp, on whether it’s actually worth bothering getting the previous platform supported the very fact that, within around 6 months, it’s likely to line to be superseded. And quite significantly too in probable comparative performance terms. While I can’t answer that question for you, I will be able to say that my excitement for Rocket Lake-S is sort of tepid. However, I’m extremely interested to ascertain what they will do with their new 10nm Alder Lake-S platform! – a part of me, however, suspects that for as amazing as it’s getting to be, it’s probably not getting to come cheaply!
