Intel Raptor Lake CPU launch could come sooner than you think

Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs could arrive in Q3 of 2022, earlier than was broadly anticipated – meaning that the processors might just be here in August, or even July technically.

This comes from regular rumor peddler @momomo_us on Twitter, who tweeted (rather obliquely) that a Q3 launch date is now the expected timeframe for both Raptor Lake and high-end desktop Sapphire Rapids-X (that’s what the fish represents: this will be Intel’s Fishhawk Falls HEDT platform).

Of course, this is just speculation, but it’s interesting to see the assertion made that Raptor Lake might turn up earlier than we thought – and by September at the latest, in theory.

The default expectation has been the likely usual gap of a year (or so) between generations, and with Alder Lake having been released earlier this month, that would leave Q4 as the most likely pitch for a Raptor Lake launch.

Analysis: Rapid Raptor release is certainly a solid possibility

It’s possible that Intel could be quick with its next-gen release, given that as we’ve already heard, Raptor Lake is purportedly more or less a simple refresh of Alder Lake. And while there’s usually a year between processor generations as we mentioned above, note that Alder Lake was here well inside a year after Rocket Lake (only seven months later, in fact; but that was unusual).

On balance, September 2022, then, could be the date to tentatively pencil in should you be waiting for Intel’s 13th-gen chips, and not jumping on board the hybrid tech (performance and efficiency cores) bandwagon in its first (12th-gen) iteration. There are probably more than a few folks in that boat.

Raptor Lake could be particularly interesting for laptops, as we saw yesterday, because Intel might be planning some new power-efficiency tricks which could augment battery longevity gains from the CPU’s efficiency cores.

As for Sapphire Rapids CPUs, these have been a long time coming, as Cascade Lake-X HEDT models have been around since 2017, so it’ll have been five years in the making if Sapphire Rapids does indeed emerge in Q3 of next year. Meanwhile, AMD is expected to have new Threadripper 5000 chips (Zen 3-based) before too long…

Remember that Intel has Sapphire Rapids CPUs for data centers ready to roll for Q2 of 2022, as well.

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Via PC Gamer