Intel's revolutionary new Alder Lake CPU will be available in September in desktop "S" format with a new socket, new chipset, DDR5 support, and an upgrade to PCIe 5. So says hardware site Uniko's Hardware (via Videocardz). If true, you might want to think twice about investing in an Intel Rocket Lake rig in a few months.

While this report is an unconfirmed rumor, it dovetails with an official statement from Intel just a few days ago that production of the 12th generation Alder Lake will ramp up later this year. It also means that Intel's 11th generation Rocket Lake architecture, scheduled to arrive in March, will have a very short tenure as Intel's premier technology for desktop PCs.

As we previously reported, Alder Lake promises to be a radical departure for Intel thanks to its bold new hybrid architecture. In brief, Alder Lake will feature both high-performance and high-efficiency cores. This approach has been seen in smartphone chips for years and has been used in Apple's M1 processor.

What is not clear is whether the Windows operating system is really ready for such an architecture, and whether there is any real benefit to high-efficiency cores on the desktop. Of course, Alder Lake will be a big leap forward in other respects as well: upgrades to both DDR5 memory and the next-generation PCI Express 5.0 interface are expected.

In addition, Alder Lake will also require a new socket with a significant increase in pins from the current LGA1200 to LGA1700. In addition, a new Intel 600 series chipset family is also expected, and the manufacturing technology will move from 14nm to 10nm, so Alder Lake will be a fairly complete refresh.

With so much new technology, the question is what role Rocket Lake will play; Rocket Lake will also feature a new chipset, and the upgrade from PCI Express 3.0 to 4.0 specifications has been long overdue. But will it take the shine off Rocket Lake if an entirely new architecture with a backwards-compatibility-breaking socket is introduced just six months later?

It is inevitable that newer, better, and faster CPUs will appear in the future. And Rocket Lake may well be offered in parallel with Alder Lake for some time to come. But Rocket Lake is likely to be short-lived, especially in terms of its status as Intel's top dog for desktops, at least.