Intel's Nova Lake Desktop CPUs to Feature NPU6 with 74 TOPS AI Performance

Intel's next-gen Nova Lake desktop CPU: NPU6 with 74 TOPS of AI power, 1.5x over Panther Lake

TL;DR: Intel's upcoming Nova Lake 400 series desktop processors will feature the advanced NPU6 chip, delivering 74 TOPS AI performance-1.5 times faster than Panther Lake's NPU5. With up to 52 cores, new Coyote Cove and Arctic Wolf architectures, Xe3 GPU, and LGA1954 socket, Nova Lake boosts AI and overall efficiency. Intel's next-generation Core Ultra 400 series "Nova Lake" desktop processors will feature a next-gen NPU6 chip, offering 1.5x the AI performance inside of the upcoming "Panther Lake" desktop chips with NPU5 coming in early 2026. In a new post on X from leaker @jaykihn0, we're hearing Nova Lake desktop CPUs will feature an upgraded NPU6 design for higher AI performance, whether consumers want/need it or not. NPU3 is inside of the "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors from Intel that launched in 2023, the same NPU inside of "Meteor Lake" chips for laptops, while NPU5 inside of "Panther Lake" next year will top out at 50 TOPS of AI performance. We knew that Nova Lake would feature an NPU for the desktop, and that it would (obviously) be faster, but now we have some firmer details from leaks that NPU6 will feature 74 TOPS of INT8 performance for AI workloads, a significant upgrade over the 50 TOPS from Panther Lake. It doesn't matter how much consumers use or even want faster AI performance, we're going to get it -- from both sides, AMD and Intel -- even if it does take up parts of the silicon that could be used for... more CPU cores, more cache, something that adds to general and gaming performance. We've had plenty of leaks over the last year, but now Intel has officially confirmed that Nova Lake will feature Coyote Cove P-Cores and Arctic Wolf E-Cores, successors to the Cougar Cove P-Core and Darkmont E-Core architectures to the soon-to-be-released Panther Lake CPUs. The new P-Core and E-Core architectures will provide some big changes, including IPC performance improvements, as well as performance-per-watt optimizations. We should expect to see the Intel Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs to feature up to 52 cores, while the Nova Lake mobile family will feature up to 28 cores, as well as a next-gen graphics tile based on the new Xe3 GPU architecture, and the desktop Nova Lake CPUs will ship on a shiny new LGA 1954 socket (so new motherboards, everyone).

Intel Nova Lake NPU6 Expected To Deliver 74 TOPS Of AI Performance

* 0-20%: Unlikely - Lacks credible sources * 21-40%: Questionable - Some concerns remain * 41-60%: Plausible - Reasonable evidence * 61-80%: Probable - Strong evidence * 81-100%: Highly Likely - Multiple reliable sources The NPU6 will be significantly superior to the current NPU4 found on the Lunar Lake and will offer a better generational uplift compared to NPU5. Intel's Nova Lake Desktop Processors to Boast a Solid 1.5X Boost in AI Performance Through NPU6 Prominent leaker @jaykihn0 today posted on X, claiming that the next-gen Intel Nova Lake will boast a much superior NPU compared to the current-gen Lunar Lake series, as well as the upcoming Panther Lake. As you may recall, we recently reported on the new generation NPU being prepared for Nova Lake. Intel apparently doesn't want to stay at the same NPU as the Panther Lake since it hardly improves the AI performance over Lunar Lake. Lunar Lake uses NPU4, bringing 48 AI TOPS of performance, while Intel Panther Lake will boast 50 AI TOPS. This isn't significant by any means and is quite a lackluster generational improvement when compared to the transition from Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake to Lunar Lake, which boast 11.5 TOPS and 13 TOPS, respectively. Intel Panther Lake will transition to NPU5 while Nova Lake will utilize NPU6, a 6th-gen NPU (Neural Processing Unit), which was seen in a Linux Kernel patch. According to the leaker, NPU6 is able to deliver a good 74 AI TOPS of INT8 performance, which is a solid 1.5X uplift over NPU4 and over 5X the NPU3 used in Arrow Lake. It's expected that this AI capability will be carried to the mobile lineup as well, but take this info with a grain of salt as we haven't heard any official announcement regarding this. Nova Lake appears to bring something new to the table, including better NPU, two graphics architectures, and AVX10 support. Hopefully, Nova Lake doesn't disappoint in IPC generational uplifts, as it really needs to tackle a strong competition since AMD will be back with its Zen 6 lineup, which is not just expected to bring good IPC uplifts, but also much superior AI capabilities than the Zen 5-based chips. Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.