Intel Rocket Lake-S is just around the corner, while we are already looking 4 generations ahead.

Intel beginning the groundwork for Lunar Lake

Intel Rocket Lake-S is just around the corner, while we are already looking 4 generations ahead.

Intel Ethernet driver “e1000e” has received initial support from Lunar Lake. This is exactly the same patch that was added to the driver for Meteor Lake, back in August. The e1000e is a wired network driver for Intel Gigabyte NIC for Linux or virtual systems. It has been frequently updated for each release. Interestingly enough, no patches for Rocket Lake were ever submitted. There were however patches for Comet Lake and Tiger Lake, which have already been released last April and September respectively.

Intel publishes e1000e driver patches for the new generation every few months. Unfortunately, we cannot use this to pinpoint the launch schedule for new generations, as the patches were added in uneven time spans.

Not much is known about Meteor Lake, let alone Lunar Lake. There were some rumors that Intel is planning to keep the LGA1700 platform for at least three generations, so theoretically it would have been the last LGA1700 CPU series. There were also leaks on integrated graphics. The series would allegedly feature Xe Gen13, the same architecture as Ponte Vecchio and Intel DG3 discrete GPUs.

Intel Lunar Lake, Source: Osuosl.org

Intel Meteor Lake vs Raptor Lake

What may be important to note is that there are reports that Intel might launch a new series called “Raptor Lake”. So far Raptor Lake has not appeared in any leak such as the one above, but some leakers that we spoke to still believe that it will indeed launch after Alder Lake. It is being described as Alder Lake Refresh, which may explain why it is not treated as a separate architecture. A refresh would also mean it is manufactured in 10nm process technology, while Meteor Lake is now expected to be the first 7nm EUV series and to feature “Redwood Cove” big core architecture. Intel Raptor Lake on 10nm could serve as an interim product refresh till Intel finally starts the mass production of its 7nm products.

At this point in time, anything now expected after Alder Lake is still in speculative space. It is important to remember the launch schedule may shift and some products may be canceled – nothing is set in stone till Intel officially confirms it. However, it does seem that Lunar Lake is indeed being worked on already and it is described as the ‘next Intel Client platform’.

Source: osuosl via Coelacanth’s Dream