In the latest Rocket Lake teaser, Intel touted double-digit instruction per cycle (IPC) gains. If the recent UserBenchmark results (via Tum_Apisak) are accurate, we might be looking at improvements up to 21%.
Wielding Cypress Cove cores, Rocket Lake processors will once again top out at eight cores and 16 threads like in the pre-Comet Lake-S days. Therefore, the octa-core Rocket Lake processor from the UserBenchmark submission is likely the flagship chip. The processor reportedly features a 3.4 GHz base clock and 4.2 GHz boost clock.
The Rocket Lake sample was running on MSI's Z590-A PRO-12VO (MS-7D10) motherboard. The last part of the model name (12VO) particularly caught our eye as it may be referring to Intel's ATX12VO specification, which aims to replace the chubby 24-pin power connector with a 10-pin one instead. ASRock has already squeezed the ATX12VO power connector into one of its Z490 motherboards so it looks like MSI did the same on its upcoming Z590-A Pro.
UserBenchmark doesn't have the best street cred in the benchmarking world so it's healthy to take the results with a pinch of salt. Rocket Lake is unreleased hardware so the software might not always behave correctly. Furthermore, it's just one Rocket Lake submission in compared to the average for tens of thousands of user benchmarks.
Intel Rocket Lake Benchmarks
| UserBenchmark | Octa-core Rocket Lake | Core i9-10900K | Core i7-10700K |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Core | 179 | 152 | 148 |
| 2-Core | 368 | 302 | 292 |
| 4-Core | 682 | 599 | 566 |
| 8-Core | 1,115 | 1,156 | 1,042 |
Rocket Lake is expected to max out at eight cores so the Core i7-10700K is the logical comparison. For reference, the Core i7-10700K has a 3.8 GHz base clock and 5.1 GHz boost clock. The unidentified octa-core Rocket Lake processor delivered up to 21% higher single-core performance than the Core i7-10700K. However, the Rocket Lake was only up to 7% faster than the Core i7-10700K in terms of eight-core performance.
If we do a flagship to flagship comparison, the Rocket Lake is evidently at a two-core disadvantage with the Core i9-10900K. Regarding single-core performance, the Rocket Lake outperformed the Core i9-10900K by 18%. It should not be forgotten that the Core i9-10900K has a 3.7 GHz base clock and 5.3 GHz boost clock. For once, it appears that Intel is actually offering substantial IPC improvements instead of just jacking up the clock speeds. Despite having two less cores, the Core i9-10900K was reportedly only 4% faster than the Rocket Lake sample.
Intel will launch Rocket Lake first quarter of 2021. An alleged, leaked Intel roadmap reduces the timeframe to late March so it might be a while before we corroborate Intel's claims or UserBenchmark's numbers. However, the real question is whether Rocket Lake can handle Ryzen 5000, which promises up to a 19% increase in IPC.
