Intel launches its 11th Gen Rocket Lake processors – Has Team Blue Reclaimed Gaming Leadership?

  

  

With their 11th generation processors, Intel is delivering PCIe 4.0 connectivity, Resizable BAR support, and memory overclocking on B560, H570 and Z590 chipset motherboards. Intel is also adding new overclocking options to their 11th generation platforms, giving gamers ore options to tweak and optimise within their systems. 

  
Strange Benchmarks

If there is one thing that Intel’s presentations avoid, it is comparing their i9-10900K to AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X. In Intel’s benchmarks, AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X bests Intel’s i9-10900K, and Intel does not want you to spot that. That is why Intel has compared the i9-11900K to AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X on a separate graph. A clever marketing strategy, at least for those who just like looking at slides. 

In Intel’s tests, their i9-11900K can deliver an 8-14% performance advantage over its last-generation counterpart across the four games below. Note that Intel only tested four games, a factor that leaves a lot of room for Intel to cherry-pick data. 

  
The Ryzen Comparison – Intel Regains its Gaming Lead

As noted above, AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X bests Intel’s i9-10900K in all of the games below, but Intel’s new i9-11900K can do better. When compared to AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X, Intel i9-11900K claims a performance lead of 3-11%, despite featuring four fewer CPU cores. 

While Intel’s lead is not massive, it is enough to give them an advantage in these games, that said, Intel only tested four games. I this cherry-picked data? We will need to wait for full Rocket Lake reviews. 

  

In the lower-end of Rocket Lake’s gaming lineup if the i5-11600K, which Intel does not compare to AMD’s Ryzen 9 5600X. When compared to its last-generation counterpart, the i5-11600K offers gamers a 7-16% performance boost in the games below. 

  
Partnerships with 200 top game developers

Intel is working with game developers to optimise their titles for their processors, news that comes as a clear indication that Intel is worried about AMD’s future Ryzen processors. Today, Intel is focusing further on developer collaborations, and this should help maximise the performance of games on Intel’s latest and future processors. 

With AMD’s Zen architecture powering all next-generation consoles, Intel needs to put in the effort to make sure that games are developed with their products in mind. Intel cannot afford to fall behind here, and Intel has the budget and reach to ensure that applications take advantage of their processors. These collaborations will also be good for AMD users, as efforts to make games more multi-threading friendly will help everyone, even console gamers. 

  

When compared to their last-generation processors, Intel claims that their Rocket Lake CPUs offer their users a significant boost in productivity, despite the fact that the i9-11900K has two fewer cores than the i9-10900K. Cypress Cove is good enough to counter Intel’s lowered core counts, at least in their selected benchmarks. 

  

When compared to AMD, Intel has claimed a performance lead in a wide range of applications, though it is worth noting that Intel is not using the same benchmarks as their 10900K comparison. That said, what Intel is showing here is that there are applications where Intel’s i9-11900K comes out on top. 

  
Pricing

Intel’s i9-11900K will release with an RCP price of $539, $10 below the MSRP of AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X. With their i7-11700K, Intel is targeting AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X with a price tag of $399, which is $50 lower than AMD’s processor MSRP. 

With Rocket Lake, Intel is targeting AMD’s high-end offerings, though we will see exactly how these processors compare when full reviews for these processors go live. 

  

With a price tag of $262, it looks like Intel are planning to undercut AMD’s $299 Ryzen 5 5600X, which makes sense given how Intel has not compared these two processors in their slides. This suggests that these processors are closely matched, but that Intel cannot promise gaming leadership. Intel wouldn’t hide that data if their i5 beat AMD’s Ryzen 5.

  
Comet Lake Refresh

Instead of releasing new i5 or lower models, Intel has decided to refresh its Comet Lake CPU lineup with new 10th generation models. These new CPUs will feature higher core clock speeds and lack some of the new features within Intel Rocket Lake lineup. These CPUs will not be called 11th Generation Intel processors, simplifying Intel’s naming scheme by making 11th Gen S-series CPUs Cypress Cove-only. 

  

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