Intel has revealed that it plans to stop production of its high-end XNUMXth generation processors, codenamed "Rocket Lake", like its XNUMXth and XNUMXth series chipsets.
It's not a totally unexpected move; Intel originally launched the 9th generation line of desktop processors in March 13900 and has gone through two generations since then, with the most recent flagship processor being the powerful Intel Core iXNUMX-XNUMXK.
If you're still using a pre-XNUMXth generation processor and are starting to worry about upgrading, don't panic. Intel has confirmed that its trading partners should place final orders for the XNUMXth generation chips by August XNUMX of this year, with final shipments scheduled for February XNUMX, XNUMX. Therefore, although they may be on the chopping block, these chips are going to be around for a while yet.
Updates, people, updates
If you're still considering upgrading, this new one shouldn't matter much to you anyway, while naturally a bit more expensive, XNUMXth and XNUMXth Gen Intel Core processors are the obvious choice here for those looking for a new processor. .
The XNUMXth generation chips are some of the best processors around and should be a bit more affordable now that the new XNUMXth generation has arrived. A large part of the reason for the big jump in performance between Rocket Lake processors and XNUMXth Gen Alder Lake processors is due to Intel's reworked core microarchitecture, which Team Blue calls "big.LITTLE."
What big.LITTLE means is that CPU cores are divided into two variations, performance and efficiency cores. P cores handle your primary workload, say running rendering software or playing a game, while E cores take care of background processes to keep your system running smoothly.
In short, anyone looking to upgrade to a newer Intel processor should definitely go with a XNUMXth generation or later chip that uses this big.LITTLE architecture. The cost-performance ratio of these processors is incredible compared to previous generations, enough to blow some of the best AMD processors out of the water.
Note that these Rocket Lake processors due for discontinuation are particularly those built on Intel's 14nm process; not the XNUMXth generation "Tiger Lake" chips for laptops and tablets, which use the XNUMXnm process.
This means that while we probably won't see any new XNUMXth-gen laptops launching next year, only desktop users are hurt by Intel's resolution right now. If you still have an LGA-XNUMX motherboard, it might be time to consider an upgrade to make your PC compatible with the new XNUMXth and XNUMXth generation Intel processors.