Monday, February 16th 2026 Fully Unleashed Nova Lake-S 52-core HEDT CPUs Only Supported by Certain Motherboards? by T0@st Today, 10:31 Discuss (0 ) Earlier last week, more details emerged regarding Intel's rumored top-level 52-core Nova Lake-S processor model. According to recent leaks, this flagship Core Ultra Series 4 design is expected to feature a 16 P-core, 32 E-core, and 4 low-power island E-core configuration, paired with big last-level cache (bLLC). An unprecedented 700 W power consumption figure (under full load) was floated by kopite7kimi, with Jaykihn weighing in about the NVL-S series' TJMax (Thermal Junction Maximum) not being offset. Also, they mentioned that thermal throttling cannot be disabled. Days later (on February 13), Jaykihn issued another preliminary prediction: only some (motherboards) will support the full-power 52-core (52C) platform. Other boards will limit the performance and power of the 52C platform. When poring over this information, VideoCardz connected dots between the very best Core Ultra Series 4 dual-tile options to a speculative and new Core X HEDT product lineup. In theory, the highest level models could bear Core X9 designations; akin to the recently launched flagship Panther Lake-H chip (Core Ultra X9 388H). Normally, Intel's workstation-focused Xeon processor families have occupied the HEDT segment. As a fallback hypothesis, VideoCardz envisions the X marking being applied exclusively to bLLC-augmented variants—likely specifying advertising elevated gaming performance; similar to AMD's X3D naming scheme. In their past weekend report, the popular online publication has dismissed rumors about Team Blue nixing the single-tile (with bLLC) side of the Nova Lake-S series. Instead, VideoCardz envisions two mainstream single-tile SKUs arriving—later in the year—pipped to take on equivalents within Team Red's Ryzen 7 and 9 desktop processor tiers. Two larger siblings, in premium dual-time form (with bLLC), are anticipated as forming a new HEDT line. Late last week, HXL/9550pro posted a diagram (see third picture below) that seemed to disclose Nova Lake-S SoC power levels, starting at an 150 W base level (PL1, PBP)—this specification leak was marked as not containing finalized data points. Apparently, Jaykihn has linked the outdated information to an unspecified 14+24 SKU. Sources: HXL/9550pro Tweet (dismissed as old info), Jaykihn Tweet, VideoCardz, Related News Tags: 700 W bLLC Core Ultra CPU Desktop flagship HEDT insider Leak motherboards Nova Lake Nova Lake-S Rumor Rumors Support Jul 24th 2025 Intel Nova Lake-S Core Ultra 3, Ultra 5, Ultra 7, and Ultra 9 Core Configurations Surface (118) Dec 31st 2025 Leaks Predict $5000 RTX 5090 GPUs in 2026 Thanks to AI Industry Demand (124) Mar 26th 2025 Intel's Arrow Lake Refresh Core Ultra 300 Series Comes with K and KF SKUs Only (15) Nov 28th 2025 Valve Steam Machine May Cost Less Than Anticipated (118) Apr 28th 2025 NVIDIA Reportedly Working on GeForce RTX 5080 SUPER 24 GB & RTX 5070 SUPER 18 GB Designs (76) Jan 10th 2026 Intel Core Ultra X9 388H Panther Lake iGPU Doubles AMD Strix Point Performance in Cyberpunk 2077 (98) Dec 17th 2025 Half-Life 3 May Launch Alongside Steam Machine in Early 2026 (78) Jan 23rd 2026 Intel Core Ultra Series 4 Nova Lake Processors Launch in Late-2026 (62) Oct 21st 2025 AMD Could Launch 16-Core Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU with 192 MB L3 Cache and 200 W TDP (93) Nov 25th 2025 Intel Nova Lake Could Get 144 MB Cache Boost from bLLC (90) Add your own on Fully Unleashed Nova Lake-S 52-core HEDT CPUs Only Supported by Certain Motherboards? There are no yet.
