It appears that unofficial pre-order pricing for Intel’s entire 11th Gen Rocket Lake Desktop CPU family has been spotted online. Preliminary pre-order prices have been listed by one US retailer Milwaukeepc for the entire Rocket Lake-S CPU lineup, as spotted by Harukaze5719.

This US retailer has been around since 1988, and they have listed the pricing of these processors way before the official announcement by Intel. As reported earlier by Wccftech, Rocket Lake 11th gen core family will be officially unveiled on 16th March 2021, and the sales/review embargo ends on 30th of March 2021.

So you should bear in mind that these early pre-order prices are massively inflated compared to Intel’s official MSRP. These might as well be placeholder price listings. For example, the flagship Core i9-11900K chip will retail for $599.99, which happens to be $100 USD higher than the MSRP of the previous gen core i9-10900K Comet Lake CPU.

The Core i9-10900K debuted roughly for $499.00, so we’re looking at almost 20% increase in price despite losing two cores on the Core i9-11900K Rocket Lake chip. However, the same US retailer is selling the Core i9-10900K for $610.99 USD, which is again highly inflated and absurd.

The same price trend applies to the Core i7-11700K CPU as well, which has been listed for $484.99 USD which is $100 more than the MSRP of the previous gen Core i7-10700K processor.

Judging from the $484.99 price tag, we might be looking at a roughly 26% increase in pricing, since the Core i7-10700K could also be had for $374 before. Based on some recently leaked performance benchmarks, the Core i7-11700K could be the new Core i9-10900K, call it as a replacement, so we can expect this SKU to be priced higher.

The Core i5-11600K CPU on the other hand has also been listed for $309.99 US. Out of the three major K-series SKUs listed online, the Core i5-11600K accounts for the least price increase (only costs 14% more than the Core i5-10600K).

Following are the preliminary pre-order price listings:

• Core i9-11900K – $599.99 US
• Core i9-11900KF – $579.99 US
• Core i9-11900 – $509.99 US
• Core i9-11900F – $479.99 US
• Core i7-11700K – $484.99 US
• Core i7-11700KF – $454.99 US
• Core i7-11700 – $389.99 US
• Core i7-11700F – $359.99 US
• Core i5-11600K – $309.99 US
• Core i5-11600KF – $279.99 US
• Core i5-11600 – $264.99 US
• Core i5-11500 – $234.99 US
• Core i5-11400 – $214.99 US
• Core i5-11400F – $179.99 US

Intel’s 11th gen desktop processor lineup will feature both Rocket Lake-S and Comet Lake-S “refresh” CPUs. The 11th generation lineup includes 13 Rocket Lake/RKL and a total of 13 Comet Lake refresh desktop CPUs. Rocket Lake lineup features the core i9, i7 & i5 variants, while the Comet Lake refresh desktop CPUs will come in Core i3, Pentium & Celeron variants.

Rocket Lake-S desktop platform should also be the last CPU architecture to be based on an advanced 14nm process node. Comet Lake-S was also fabbed on this aging process node, which has held Intel back in terms of IPC uplift and efficiency gains over AMD’s Ryzen lineup.

RKL processor family is expected to share the same socket and motherboard compatibility as the current 10th Gen Comet Lake processors, thus providing an upgrade path even for those rocking the flagship Core i9-10900K Comet lake CPU.

Rocket Lake-S will be housed on the 500-series motherboards. Although the Rocket Lake-S lineup will be the last to feature the LGA1200 socket and the Z490 chipset, Intel is planning a full range of chipsets, including workstation W580, high-end gaming Z590, H570, and budget-oriented B560 and H510 series. The current 400-series motherboard chipsets will also support these upcoming SKUs after a BIOS update.

Intel has also broadened the DMI interface, which connects the processor to the platform controller hub (PCH), from x4 to x8.

John Bonini (VP and GM of Client Computing Group Desktop, Workstation, and gaming at Intel) has also confirmed that the 11th gen core series of processors codenamed Rocket Lake will be Intel’s first lineup to support the PCI-Express gen 4.0 interface, a feature which has been seemingly missing in Intel’s client desktop CPU platform for quite some time.

Rocket Lake will deliver desktop users up to eight cores and sixteen threads on the high-end, which means two cores and four threads less than the current Comet Lake processor lineup. But the reduction in core count could also mean that Intel plans to rely on increased single-threaded performance, thus boosting overall system performance through single-threaded gains.

Single-thread performance will help Intel to compete more in the CPU market segment, even if AMD can deliver higher core count SKUs. Not all applications or tasks are highly multi-threaded in nature, which makes the single-threaded performance all the more important.

But you should also note that even though Intel touts IPC gains of up to 19%, and full support for the PCIe 4.0 gen interface, the Rocket Lake-S platform is the last to use the aging LGA 1200 socket, so obviously your upgrade options are going to be limited (should you plan to buy a new INTEL CPU in near future).

So the LGA 1200 socket will be considered as obsolete and short-lived by many once the next-gen LGA 1700 socket platform arrives with the new Alder Lake-S CPU lineup.

Stay tuned for more tech news!

UPDATE:

Intel has officially confirmed that its 11th gen Rocket Lake-S desktop CPUs will be launching on the 30th of March, 2021. In response to Hardwareluxx, an Intel spokesperson confirmed the Rocket Lake CPU’s launch schedule.

“The sales embargo for 11th Gen Desktop processors (Rocket Lake S) is March 30, 2021 at 6 a.m. PT / 9 a.m. ET”. – Intel Spokesman to HardwareLuxx.

This corresponds with what Wccftech reported earlier, that Rocket Lake 11th gen core family will be officially unveiled on 16th March 2021, and the sales/review embargo ends on 30th of March 2021.

So on 16th March at 8 AM (Pacific Time). Intel will open pre-orders and will allow retailers to advertise the CPU officially. Intel will also allow the press to provide full specs, pricing, and more detailed information about these processors.

However, the review and sales NDA ends on the 30th of March at 6 AM (Pacific Time), so you have to wait for two weeks for the reviews to go live. If you pre-order, then obviously you need to place your purchasing decision based on the previously leaked/rumored specs and performance of these processors.

On some other note, in case you didn’t know, German retailer Mindfactory has been selling these 11th gen core processors even before the official embargo date. Almost 1 month ahead of launch. However, this appears to be some mistake made in the supply chain, and/or the communicated sales embargo date.

But the retailer claims that they were allowed to sell these CPUs.

Intel has also stated that they are aware of retailers selling unreleased products and that they have ongoing discussions with both partners and retailers, that are confidential as part of Intel’s internal policies.

However, Intel did not comment whether Mindfactory retailer was responsible for breaking the official embargo date, or whether they violated the company’s guidelines as well.

We take our embargo agreements seriously. We are aware of a retailer selling unreleased products and are following up as appropriate.

We cannot comment on particular actions taken by retailers. We have ongoing discussions with partners which are confidential as part of our policy. We take our embargo agreements seriously and are following up as appropriate. – Intel Spokesman to HardwareLuxx.