New details regarding the Intel Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs, mainly about their memory & PCIe lanes, have been revealed.
Intel Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs To Boost Native Memory Support By 25% With 8000 MT/s DDR5
[Update - 6/17/25] - Jaykihn has shared more details regarding the Nova Lake-S Desktop platform PCIe and USB specifications. It looks like we are looking at a total of 48 PCIe lanes in total, which will include 24 CPU PCIe 5.0 lanes, 4 DMI PCIe 5.0 lanes, 8 chipset PCIe 5.0 lanes, and 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes. In addition to these, the next-gen chipset will also offer 8 SATA III lanes, support for up to 14 USB2 ports, 10 USB 3.2 5 Gbps ports, 10 USB 3.2 10 Gbps ports, and 5 USB 3.2 20 Gbps ports. The CPU PCIe 5.0 lanes will be configured in 1x16+2x4, 2x8+2x4, or 4x4+2x4 configurations.
Nova Lake Platform PCIE and USB Specifications pic.twitter.com/wgG2u5xINN
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) June 17, 2025
The latest information comes from @jaykihn0, who has shared additional details regarding the Intel Nova Lake-S platform. Just a few hours ago, the first specifications and SKU details for various Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs leaked out. According to that, the next-gen CPUs will offer up to 52 cores, a core count uplift of over 2x versus the existing Arrow Lake-S offerings. Now, we are getting our first information about the platforms themselves.
Starting with the memory support, it looks like Intel's Nova Lake-S will get a 50% speed bump at native specs. While Arrow Lake-S CPUs offered some insane memory support with standard DDR5 and CUDIMM DDR5 modules, reaching over 9000 MT/s speeds on certain motherboards, the native speeds supported by the platform were only DDR5-6400.
Nova Lake -S
8000 MT/s 1DPC 1R
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) June 16, 2025
With Intel Nova Lake-S, these specs will be driven up to DDR5 8000 MT/s natively (1DPC 1R). That's a solid increase, and it looks like the new memory controller on Nova Lake-S will be able to deliver some insane memory speeds. If 8000 MT/s should be the baseline, we can expect over 10,000 MT/s speeds with faster modules and beyond that with CUDIMM.
We also can't wait to see how the RAM ecosystem evolves with Nova Lake-S as CUDIMMs and LPCAMM2 memory will get even more spotlight on next-gen platforms and will be the go-to solution for enthusiasts and overclockers versus standard DIMMs, which will mostly be focused on mainstream use cases.
And finally, we have a word on the PCIe 5.0 lanes, which will be increased to 36 in total. Intel's Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs featured a total of 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes, of which 4 were used for DMI, leaving 20 for GPU (x16) and SSD (x4). Nova Lake-S will also share 4 lanes with DMI, leaving 32 in total, so that is two full x16 lanes or one full x16 and four x4 lanes for SSDs. There will also be 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes.
While these are preliminary details, users can also expect improved overclocking features and much more with the next-generation 900-series motherboards that will arrive alongside the Intel Nova Lake-S CPUs in 2026, so stay tuned.
Nova Lake-S vs Arrow Lake-S
| Family | Nova Lake-S | Arrow Lake-S |
|---|---|---|
| Core Count (Max) | 52 | 24 |
| Thread Count (Max) | 52 | 24 |
| Max P-Cores | 16 | 8 |
| Max E-Cores | 32 | 16 |
| Max LP-E Cores | 4 | 0 |
| Max Cache (L2+L3) | 160-320 MB | 76 MB |
| Max bLLC Cache | 144-288 MB | N/A |
| DDR5 (1DPC 1R) | 8000 MT/s | 7200-6400 MT/s |
| PCIe 5.0 Lanes (Max) | 36 | 24 |
| PCIe 4.0 Lanes (Max) | 16 | 4 |
| Socket Support | LGA 1954 | LGA 1851 |
| Max TDP (PL1) | 125-175W | 125W |
| Max Power | ~700W (Dual) ~350W (Single) | ~400W |
| Launch | 2H 2026 | 1H 2026 |
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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