26 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2021NEWS INTEL TAKES ON RYZEN WITH ROCKET LAKE S
memory, prompting Intel to move from DDR4-
2933 on “Comet Lake” to the DDR4-3200
memory used by Rocket Lake S. Moving from
16 lanes of PCI Express 3.0 to 20 lanes of PCI
Express 4.0 also allowed enough lanes for
both a 4-lane PCIe SSD, as well as the 16 lanes
used by the latest GPU. Rocket Lake-S also
includes hardware decode support for AV1
(and videos stored in the AVIF file format)
which compresses data 50 percent more
efficiently than the x254 main profile, reducing
bandwidth needs for those who use it. USB
3.2 Gen 2x2 increases the available USB
bandwidth from 10Gbps to 20Gbps overall.
Rocket Lake-S also includes always-on Intel
Quick Sync Video, which Guttridge says now
works concurrently with the integrated GPU.
Previously, only one desktop GPU (either the
integrated GPU or the discrete GPU) could be
on at a single time. Now, both can be active,
allowing the discrete GPU to be wholly
purposed on rendering a game, for example,
while the integrated GPU encodes the output
for streaming video.WHAT WE DON’T KNOW:
CHIPSET DETAILS,
OVERCLOCKING
What we don’t know includes what Intel is
doing specifically with overclocking in mind.
Guttridge promised Intel would have more to
share on overclocking capabilities closer to
launch, as the company plans to “push the
boundaries on delivering customizationtunability and optimizations to our end users.”
We also don’t have official, specific
details on the new 500-series motherboard
chipsets that will launch with Rocket Lake-S,
though the chip will be able to be used with
the older 400-series chipsets—at least
theoretically. Guttridge recommended that
buyers contact motherboard vendors and
confirm that “PCI Express 4.0-ready”
motherboards will have the capability turned
on and the proper BIOS installed. Guttridge
said that the change in the DMI interface
won’t affect the backwards compatibility of
the Rocket Lake-S chip. Board makers,
however, have begun spilling the beans. We
know that there will be at least three chipsets:
the Z590, H570, B560 and H510. Asus said
that the ROG Maximus XIII Z590 board will
include a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, one of
the few specs we know at the moment.
One processor that Intel didn’t compare
itself to was Apple’s M1, the ARM chip that
will replace the Core i7 and Core i9 inside the
MacBook and other devices. Ryan Shrout of
Intel’s competitive performance team
summed up Intel’s stance: “I’d say, you know,
Apple did an excellent job on their
processor.”
Still, Shrout added, there’s room for Intel
to compete. “The truth is that our testing
shows there are many areas of leadership for
our 11th-gen Tiger Lake products across
productivity, content creation, and especially
gaming,” he said.