Intel Has Unveiled Their CPU Roadmap-Mainly Nova Lake for High-End Desktop Re-stocking
Intel's Chief Financial Officer, David Zinsner, gave an insight into the future CPU trends of the company and spoke explicitly on the issues regarding the high-end desktop market and what they will do in the client and Xeon server segments.
Address High-End Desktop in 2026
By way of direct acknowledgment during the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, Zinsner has admitted that the introduction of Arrow Lake CPUs was not a successful attempt at really capturing the high-desktop market given the strength of AMD's Ryzen 9000 series.
"We kind of fumbled the football on the desktop side, particularly high-performance desktop side," Zinsner said, going on to explain that this weakness has been evident from the overall market share for the company.
The company's answer is Nova Lake, the next-generation CPU family planned for 2026. Zinsner described it as a "more complete set of SKUs" specifically to pay attentions on the high-end desktop market and set the company's competitive position against what is expected by AMD's Zen 6 architecture.
Xeon Strategy Shift: Multi-threading Returns
On the server side, Zinsner outlined a tactical gear shift for the Xeon family. He hasn't ruled Diamond Rapids upcoming CPUs as an improvement but has not fully closed the performance gap AMD's EPYC line.
A major change is the reversal of a previous decision to remove Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT). Zinsner confirmed that previous non-SMT roadmaps have been "axed" in favor of re-introducing multi-threading to better meet customer demands.
He identified the next processor, Coral Rapids, as Intel's "real opportunity" to make a significant step forward and mount a major comeback in the server market.
Future Timelines and Process Technology
Contrary to the make-up of Panther Lake, Clearwater Forest, and Diamond Rapids, their future product releases will make use of these advanced process nodes:
- Panther Lake, Clearwater Forest, and Diamond Rapids will leverage Intel's 18A process node.
- Nova Lake will use a combination of technologies for its tiles, including both Intel and TSMC manufacturing.
- For Panther Lake and Diamond Rapids, these are nearer-term releases, whereas Coral Rapids is a 2027-2028 product, suggesting that Xeon will have a longer-term strategy.
