According to Tom’s Hardware, Intel’s Core Ultra 400 Nova Lake-S desktop chips are heading for mass production in the fourth quarter of 2026, with retail launches starting later.
Chipzilla’s first Nova Lake-S parts are expected in the first quarter of 2027, but only the unlocked 28-core model appears to be arriving then. The rumoured 52-core flagship is reportedly being held for later in 2027, with some leaks pointing to a window from late May to September.
The leaked slide was posted by wxnod and appears more like motherboard vendor material than an official Intel roadmap or investor presentation. That means the schedule may reflect information shared with OEM partners, although the usual caveats apply until Chipzilla issues a formal statement.
Nova Lake-S is expected to use up to 16 Coyote Cove performance cores, 32 Arctic Wolf efficiency cores and four low-power Arctic Wolf cores. The range-topping Core Ultra 9 400 chips are expected to combine two compute tiles, while Core Ultra 7 models may reach 44 cores.
Leaked details suggest the two-tile chips could pull up to 474W and require motherboards with three 12V EPS power connectors. Nova Lake-S will reportedly support dual-channel DDR5-8000 memory, 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU and the new LGA1954 socket.
Chipzilla’s 900-series chipsets are expected alongside the platform, with Razor Lake and Hammer Lake listed as later successors after 2027.
