Intel 11th-generation Rocket Lake-S CPU spotted on Geekbench

(Image credit: Future)

An Intel Rocket Lake-S processor with 8-cores and 16-threads has appeared on Geekbench ahead of its rumoured launch in 2021. 

Though Intel’s 11th-generation CPU lineup is unlikely to arrive any time soon, this is the second time we've seen a top-end 8-core, 16-thread Rocket Lake-S CPU appear in Geekbench, adding yet more weight to the rumours that the lineup will top-out at a maximum of eight cores compared to Comet Lake's 10.  

The processor, which is expected to bring an architecture change from Skylake for the first time in five years, is listed as having a base clock of 3.2GHz and boost clock of 4.3GHz, which suggests this is the same chip that showed up earlier this month.

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In addition, this latest leak details the processor’s built-in iGPU, which reportedly sports 32 Compute Units, with a core clock frequency of 1.15GHz and 6.33GB of VRAM. However, although the iGPU is expected to be using the Intel Xe graphics architecture, early benchmarking scores don’t look promising. 

As reported by Notebookcheck, the Xe graphics scored just 6,266 In the OpenCL benchmark test, almost 40 percent slower than the Vega 10 integrated graphics found in AMD’s 15W, ultra-low voltage Ryzen 7 3700U APU.

What’s more, this is also slightly lower than the 6,360 points racked up by the Intel UHD 630 graphics found in the Intel Core i7-10700K. 

However, that’s likely because the CPU benchmarked is an early engineering sample – performance numbers are likely far from final.

And though Rocket Lake will continue to be based on 14nm, it's expected that Intel's upcoming Willow Cave architecture – which will also be used for Tiger Lake CPUs – will deliver decent IPC gains, with early rumors suggesting a boost of up to 25%. 

Though not mentioned in this latest leak, it’s also widely expected that Intel’s Rocket Lake-S processors are also rumored to work with the chipmaker's new Z490 motherboards, and will boast PCIe 4.0 support.

Intel is expected to launch its Rocket Lake-S processors in the first half of 2021. 

Carly Page

Carly Page is a Freelance journalist, copywriter and editor specialising in Consumer/B2B technology. She has written for a range of titles including Computer Shopper, Expert Reviews, IT Pro, the Metro, PC Pro, TechRadar and Tes.