Intel calls time on Rocket Lake, the CPU generation that should never have happened

Intel Core i5 11600K processor shot on a blue background from the front
(Image credit: Future)

The Intel CPU architecture that was never meant to be has become the processor generation that no longer is. Intel has popped a proverbial cap into Rocket Lake, otherwise known as its 11th Generation Core processors. They are, in their entirety, officially EOL'd or shifted to end-of-life status.

Unsurprisingly, the game is also up for Intel's 400 and 500 series chipsets which support Rocket Lake CPUs. The supply of Rocket Lake CPUs won't cease instantly. Final orders are now being taken and the remaining chips will work their way through the system. But Rocket Lake is officially on notice.

Lest ye have forgotten, Rocket Lake was a curious beast. Built on the by-then ancient 14nm node and topped out with the Core i9 11900K, Intel itself admitted that Rocket Lake was a back-port of an architecture originally intended for 10nm. But such were the catastrophic delays bringing up 10nm, Intel was forced to bodge Rocket Lake on 14nm.

The result was a chip with a decent step up in IPC or performance per clock over its Comet Lake predecessor, but also a CPU architecture with a distinct power guzzling problem. Rocket Lake had big old CPU cores originally intended for a more advanced process node and that made for distinctly inefficient cores, which is no doubt why the architecture was reserved for the desktop and never made it into laptops.

Rocket Lake's hefty backported cores were also the reason why Intel scaled back the maximum core count from 10 in Comet Lake to eight for Rocket Lake. Those Rocket Lake cores were just too big and power hungry.

Arguably, remnants of Rocket Lake's backported character can still be seen in today's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs, built on 10nm tech now rebranded Intel 7. They're still very power hungry chips if you light 'em up with an all-cores workload, perhaps reflecting the fact that Intel was originally expecting to be making chips on 7nm or even 4nm by now.

Anyway, Rocket Lake wasn't a total disaster, but it was symptomatic of Intel's broader struggles with its chip manufacturing tech. If you fancy a Rocket Lake CPU, perhaps as a drop-in upgrade for an existing PC, well, you'd better get your skates on. Time is a tickin' on the Intel CPU architecture that was never meant to be.

Best CPU for gamingBest gaming motherboardBest graphics cardBest SSD for gaming


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first

Jeremy Laird
Hardware writer

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

Read more
A screenshot from a video by Ordinary Uncle Tony, showing the internal structure of Intel's Arrow Lake desktop CPU
Intel's next-gen desktop CPU Nova Lake allegedly spotted and can't come soon enough
A screenshot from a video by Ordinary Uncle Tony, showing the internal structure of Intel's Arrow Lake desktop CPU
It looks like there will be no new Intel desktop CPUs until 2026 now that next-gen Nova Lake is officially a 2026 product
A photo of an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor surrounded by DDR5 memory sticks from Corsair, Kingston, and Lexar
Fresh leak suggests Intel's on-again-off-again Arrow Lake CPU refresh is back on the menu (boys)
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor
AMD accuses Intel's Arrow Lake of being a 'horrible' product and implies a lack of options for consumers has caused the Ryzen 7 9800X3D shortage
Intel's Interim Co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus holding a Panther Lake processor sample at its CES 2025 keynote
Intel on its next-gen laptop chip: 'Panther Lake will take everything you love about Lunar Lake to the next level'
A photograph of Intel's Interim Co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus standing on stage, with a background displaying Panther Lake and Intel 18A
Intel says next-gen Panther Lake laptop chips on its new 18A silicon are still on track for later this year but things are more complicated on the desktop
Latest in Processors
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivering pancakes and sausages to pre-GTC show hosts and guests, wearing an apron
'There might be a party. I wasn't invited,' says Jensen Huang of the rumoured TSMC proposal to join forces and run Intel's chip fabs
Nvidia Feynman GPU
While we despair of RTX 50-series supplies and wait on next-gen Rubin, Nvidia reveals its next-next GPU architecture will be known as Feynman and is due in 2028
Nvidia Vera CPU
Nvidia reveals Vera, a new CPU with 'custom' cores which could be very exciting for its upcoming premium PC processor
Machinery tools and equipment,Rolls of galvanized steel for production metal pipes and tubes for industrial ventilation systems in factory.
New super-thin '2D' metal sheets could enable ultra-low power chips and can you guess how they're made? Yup, by squishing stuff really hard
Aooster's G-Flip 370 mini PC
This palm-sized PC has removable memory, a flip up screen, and a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor
Texas Instruments MSPM0C1104 tiny chip
World's smallest microcontroller looks like I could easily accidentally inhale it but packs a genuine 32-bit Arm CPU
Latest in News
The "mind blown" meme from Tim & Eric.
Friendship ended with human race: Boffins declare the 'meme Turing test' has been passed, and AI is now making funnier captions on average than you useless lumps
Gale, a wizard from Baldur's Gate 3, looks very bloodied and very sad at the player while a celestial midnight blooms behind his depressed mug.
Baldur's Gate 3's latest stress test update fixes heartbreaking bug that caused a total party-wipe on Ironman Mode at the game's final boss, forcing dejected testers to restart the entire game
Two adventurers face off against a pair of undead scallywags in Frosthaven
X-Com creator Julian Gollop unexpectedly takes over sequel to sprawling board game adaptation, and you can try out the closed beta next week
Naoe and Yasuke pose against the backdrop of a burning building.
After Ubi came crawlin' back to Steam, Assassin's Creed Shadows blasts past a million players in under 24 hours and has already smashed Valhalla's player record
Gabe Newell in a Valve promotional video, on a yacht.
Valve CMO threatened the company would walk away from games if it didn't own the rights to Half-Life—'It wasn't an idle threat—we weren't going to take on all of the risk to make other people rich'
Nvidia Blackwell GPU with specs annotated.
CEO Jensen Huang reveals that Nvidia is now making chips in the USA but will that help with gaming GPU supplies?