Cautiously optimistic news have been coming about the upcoming Intel Nova Lake processors lately (if a 9% 1T performance boost is a reason for optimism). Unfortunately, leaks that paint a bleaker picture are also coming in. Although Nova Lake processors will transition from a 3nm to a more advanced 2nm process, which would normally be expected to improve efficiency, their power consumption will reportedly increase instead.
- Read more: First benchmarks of Intel Nova Lake leaked
A Chinese leaker going by the nickname Golden Pig Upgrade Pack on the Weibo social network has now published information suggesting that higher-end models of Intel’s Nova Lake processors, the new generation that will hit the market at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, will increase the so-called PL1 value, which is the sustained power limit that the processor can consume. The limit will be set to 296 W by default. The PL2 value (which is maximum turbo power consumption) will probably be identical. This represents an increase of almost 20% compared to the value for the other Nova Lake processors, which have both PL1 and PL2 limits set to 250 W in the standard so-called Performance profile.
This value applies to the processor’s maximum configuration with 28 cores—8 big P-Cores, 16 medium or little E-Cores, and 4 LP efficiency E-Cores in the SoC tile—and an important detail is that this refers specifically to the variant of 28-core processor equipped with the so-called BLLC, an expanded L3 cache with a capacity of 144 MB. This processor version should be interesting for gamers, as BLLC should have a similar beneficial effect on gaming performance as the “X3D” technology in AMD Ryzen gaming processors.
The 28-core configuration will be the maximum configuration of conventional Nova Lake processors with a single CPU chiplet; Intel is also preparing versions with up to 52 cores, that will feature two CPU chiplets (and these processors will always use the BLLC variant of CPU chiplets). These dual-chiplet versions will have higher power consumption, however—some time ago, information leaked that their PL2, or maximum boost power consumption, could be 474 W.
We do not know for certain whether the CPU-Z benchmark score that leaked recently was obtained with this version of processor configured with a 296 W power limit. It was supposed to be a Core Ultra 9 4950K model with 28 cores, which could be the vanilla and not the BLLC variant of Nova Lake. If the power consumption was 296 W and the sample nevertheless showed only about a 5% increase in multi-threaded performance compared to the 250 W Arrow Lake processors, that would be a rather poor result. However, it is also possible that the processor was not reaching all the way to its maximum power consumption when running CPU-Z and was actually consuming less. The fact that the PL1/PL2 value (or PPT for AMD) is set to a certain value does not necessarily mean that power consumption will reach 100% of the number.
Maximum power consumption is often not reached in all applications, but only in the more demanding multi-threaded ones. Power consumption while gaming, in particular, should generally be significantly lower. It is also possible that cheaper models with fewer cores, namely the various Core Ultra 7 models and especially Core Ultra 5 processors, will have a lower power limit. For example, within the current Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh processor families (2nd-generation Core Ultra for desktop), the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 7 265K feature maximum power consumption (PL1/PL2) of 250 W, while the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 5 245K models are set to just 159 W.
However, if a 296 W PL1 and PL2 for BLLC models becomes reality, motherboards for such CPUs will have to be prepared for these power draws, and manufacturers will once again have to build them with somewhat more robust VRMs, which will make them more expensive. Coolers will also have to account for the higher power consumption. The gradual increase in power consumption is unfortunately a strong trend in gaming PCs—for example, AMD has also increased the maximum boost power consumption (PPT) of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. Previously, the absolute maximum for AM5 processors was 230 W (with a specified 170 W TDP), but for this new product, the TDP was increased to 200 W and the PPT to 270 W.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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