Intel launched the Arrow Lake CPUs in October last year and made tall claims about their performance. However, consumers' reviews painted a completely different picture than what Intel claimed, especially for gamers, with significantly less performance than what the company claimed during the launch. This has put a lot of pressure on Intel to get the next-gen Intel Nova Lake CPUs right.

While Intel has plenty of time to make sure that it doesn't repeat the same mistakes with Nova Lake, the latest rumors regarding the CPU will disappoint users who recently bought Intel 800-series motherboards and are planning to upgrade to a Nova Lake next year. It might upset you in that case, because you might have to spend more than you thought to upgrade your system to Nova Lake-S.

Intel Nova Lake-S CPUs may need a newer LGA-1954 platform

Intel's current Core Ultra 200 CPUs (Arrow Lake) require an LGA-1851 CPU socket on your motherboard to be compatible. This is currently the latest and greatest platform from Intel for desktop users, and it only came out last year. If you've purchased one, you might only be able to upgrade to, at most, Arrow Lake Refresh (Core Ultra 300), which is expected to come later this year.

According to a recent leak from NBD, Intel is testing Nova Lake-S CPUs on the LGA-1954 platform, which will likely be the successor to LGA-1851, launched last year (via Videocardz, @Olrak29_). If this is indeed true, the Intel 800-series motherboards you bought need to be replaced with a new one that features support for the LGA-1954 CPU socket if you plan to upgrade your system from Arrow Lake-S to Nova Lake-S. Long story short, you won't be able to upgrade your system for less.

This isn't surprising to those of us who know Intel's support schedule. It typically switches to a newer socket after two generations of desktop CPUs. LGA-1851 launched with Intel Arrow Lake-S in October last year, and it'll support only one more from here, which is the Arrow Lake-S Refresh. Since the Nova Lake-S is expected to arrive in the second half of 2026, it perfectly aligns with the company's previous record of moving to a newer socket after every two years.

Intel plans massive core count upgrade for Nova Lake

Rumor has it that the highest configuration for Nova Lake or Core Ultra Series 4 CPUs will have a total of 52 cores (16 P-cores + 32 E-cores + 4 LPE-cores), which is double the 24 cores in Core Ultra 9 285K. It isn't clear how many SKUs of Nova Lake CPUs will be available, but if we go by rumors, there will be more: one with 28 cores (8 P-cores + 16 E-cores + 4 LPE cores), and the other with 16 cores (4 P-cores + 8 E-cores + 4 LPE cores). The maximum of 52 cores will be available only for desktop CPUs, while the 28-core model will reportedly be for Nova Lake-HX gaming laptops.