The microprocessor industry has never been so choppy. The omnipresence of ARM on mobile devices . The entrance of Apple with its own chips . Or the increasingly relevant role of GPUs , inside and outside of gaming. These are just some of the inconveniences or challenges that Intel has to face. All in all, it remains a market leader and manages to outperform itself with each new generation of Intel Core processors. This time, with the Intel Core Rocket Lake-S family.
Focused on one of the most demanding markets, that of the gaming PC , the family of desktop processors Intel Core Rocket Lake-S faces its rival AMD improving what was already good in previous generations: power, speed and optimization of resources. But it also introduces improvements in its architecture . The result is processors that top the gaming benchmarks thanks to their optimization focused on offering good performance in some of the most demanding tasks for a desktop computer.
If you need to know all the ins and outs of the Rocket Lake-S you can consult this article. But, in summary, among the highlights of this eleventh generation is the improvement in single-wire performance by up to 19%, keeping the the same number of cores and without increasing the frequency of work. To this must be added the ease of doing overclocking . That and the integration of artificial intelligence through deep learning or integrated graphics that promise a 50% improvement with its Intel Xe technology. But the important question is, what do these improvements translate into in practice?
A good CPU needs a good company
To test first-hand how Intel Rocket Lake-S processors perform, we have had the collaboration of Intel itself and Binary Systems , which has assembled a gaming computer for the occasion. Precisely, Binary has been offering components and gaming computers ready to work for years.
For starters, a Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB chassis. Ideal to see the interior and all its components in operation. Inside, a processor Intel Core i9 11900K mounted on a motherboard Asus ROG Strix Z590-F Gaming WiFi . As a graphic accompaniment, a 24 GB Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3090 VISION OC card . Memory, 64 GB DDR4 DRAM from Corsair, model Vengeance RGB Pro. Storage, 2 TB spread over two disks Intel SSD 665p Series . And, to avoid temperature problems, a liquid CPU cooler iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX . As for the software, the already usual Windows 10 in its Pro version.
Together, an off-road gaming team with the best of each house to deal with recent titles , and with those that may appear in the coming months, with hardly any disheveled. And the best of all: with a good behavior in use of resources, performance and energy consumption . That and quite a show in operation both for what you can see on the screen and on the chassis itself.
Figures, data and sensations
Although Intel Rocket Lake-S processors offer good performance in practically all daily tasks, their main reason for being is gaming, video editing and tasks related to data processing and artificial intelligence . And to be practical, we have focused on gaming , one of the fastest growing sectors in recent years despite the fact that having a good gaming PC requires a good financial outlay.
The processor model that I have been able to test has been the 8-core Core i9 11900K. With a base clock frequency of 3.5 GHz, in the tests carried out I have reached 5.2 GHz without problems. And it is that this processor can give a lot of itself at the necessary moment thanks to its improvements and overclocking possibilities .
If we stick to the figures and we focus on the results of the many tests that can be performed on a CPU like the Rocket Lake-S family, the Intel Core i9 11900K scores very good numbers against the competition or even outperforming Intel processors from previous generations . Something that on the other hand is taken for granted but that should be checked.
Compared to processors with the same number of cores , the Core i9 Rocket Lake-S comes out ahead and occupies the first places in CPU performance. The only chips that can overcome it use 16-, 20- and 32-core processors. However, the clock frequency achieved is unique in each of the tests thanks to its Intel Turbo Boost and Intel Thermal Velocity Boost technologies for which the user does not have to do anything .
And what figures does Intel itself offer on this family of Intel Core processors? The two main data we should stick with are the CPI (Instructions per cycle) , which improves by 19% compared to previous generations. And for gamers, the performance of the integrated graphics is up to 50% better than previous processors. The reason I mentioned earlier: its twelfth-generation Intel Xe technology . Although it was already available in the Tiger Lake generation processors for laptops , with the Rocket Lake-S processors it manages to give its best.
To obtain these results, Intel tested its chips with games such as Gears 5, Total War Three Kingdoms: Dynasty, GRID (2019), Far Cry New Dawn, Total War: Warhammer 2, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Specifically, they compared the gaming performance both in the Intel Core i9 11900K processors of this generation, the Rocket Lake, and in the previous ones, nicknamed Comet Lake. And the results, as I mentioned before, do not disappoint.
Improve by enhancing what you already have
Little can be blamed on the Intel Rocket Lake-S based on what we have in front of us. Good performance in minimal conditions and excellent performance in the best conditions if we surround it with components to match such as good graphics, RAM, storage and good cooling. Come on, what can not be missing in a good gaming PC that wants to compete with the most recent titles on the market.
For its nth generation of processors, Intel has decided to convert its 10-nanometer Sunny Cove architecture. Thus, under the name of Cypress Cove now works on 14 nanometer nodes. Instead of opting for the simple proliferation of cores with which to give more power to the processor, they have decided to improve what was already good. But giving it more capacity. The best example, increasing single-wire performance by passing from the eight threads to the 16 threads of Rocket Lake. And why not, doubling the number of cores in turn.
To this must be added the graphical improvement. Regardless of whether you incorporate an external card, with its GPU integrated by default it already offers good performance for current games . Or to perform tasks such as video editing, streaming of what you are playing or other tasks that require high graphic performance.
The million dollar question. If you are about to build your own gaming PC or upgrade the one you already have, is it worth making the leap to this new generation of Intel Core? The answer is yes. If we seek to obtain the best performance and squeeze the most out of that game that has just been released, an Intel Rocket Lake-S cannot be missing from your gaming equipment.
