Alder Lake is Intel’s secret weapon for late 2021 – Huge IPC improvement leaked

If the latest rumours are to be believed, Intel has something special lined up for late 2021, a new architecture that will finally bring 10nm to thew top of Intel’s desktop lineup and bring with it an advanced core design that will bring together both high performance and high-efficiency CPU cores. 

Alder Lake is due to launch as Intel’s successor to Rocket Lake, which is due to release sometime next month. This will make Rocket Lake a shortlived CPU architecture, assuming that Alder Lake’s leaked December 2021 release timeframe proves to be accurate. Alder Lake’s reveal is said to be coming this September, making 2021 a busy year for Intel and their partnered motherboard manufacturers. 

With their 12th Generation of Core processors, Intel is reportedly moving to a new CPU socket called LGA 1700, which means that PC builders will need to move to a new CPU platform for Alder Lake. The good news is that Alder Lake should be a worthy upgrade for hardware enthusiasts, as Intel has already promised a large IPC increased and higher core counts with Alder Lake. 

Alder Lake will be comprised of new high-performance Golden Cove cores and new high-efficiency Gracemont cores. According to HKEPC, via Videocardz, Intel’s Golden Cove cores will offer a 20% IPC improvement, while their high-efficiency Graemont cores will offer similar IPC values to Intel’s Skylake architecture.

Intel’s Golden Cove cores will offer their users Hyperthreading support, while Gracemont offers singular threads. With this in mind, Intel’s Alder Lake processors are due to offer their users sixteen cores and twenty-four threads. Rocket Lake will only offer users up to eight total cores and sixteen threads, making Alder Lake a huge upgrade for Intel fans. 

Alder Lake is also reportedly using an enhanced version of Intel’s SuperFin 10nm process tech, giving the architecture power efficiency advantages over today’s Tiger Lake mobile processors. If this is true, 10nm may finally be ready for primetime, around half a decade late. 

Right now, AMD’s Zen 4 Ryzen processors have no firm release date, though recent rumours suggest that AMD are targeting an early 2022 release target. This allows Intel to potentially surpass AMD’s Zen 3 CPU lineup and pre-empt the launch of Zen 4, securing the company a stronger market position within the enthusiast PC market.