Just as we thought the number of cores in your average gaming U had hit a plateau, it looks as though next-generation Intel Core and AMD Ryzen desktop Us could feature many more cores than the Us of today. In fact, we could even be looking at 48-core Intel chips and 24-core AMD Ryzen chips, showing a big jump over the 24-core and 16-core threshold today.
That's unlikely to make a big difference if you only use your PC for gaming, especially seeing as the Intel chip, maybe called the Core Ultra 9 385K, could make a massive difference.
Of course, AMD and Intel haven't announced any details whatsoever about the core counts in their next-gen Us, but we were drawn to a chat between two regular tech leakers in a thread on X (formerly Twitter), which appears to suggest that both companies are working on significant increases in core counts.
It started with this post from Everest (Olrak29_), which simply outlines two sets of numbers with a "vs" between them and a question mark at the end. Often-reliable tech leaker kopite7kimi then chimes in with "NVL vs Zen6" as a follow-up, referring to Intel's forthcoming Nova Lake architecture and AMD's next-gen Zen 6 architecture.
The top number – "2 * (8+16)" – appears to suggest that a top-end Nova Lake U will have a pair of compute tiles in its package, each containing eight P-Cores and 16 E-Cores, doubling the number found in top-end Intel Arrow Lake Us today. Intel has been stuck with eight P-Cores and 16 P-Cores since its 13th-gen Raptor Lake Us at the top end, and it could be looking to increase the number of cores by moving to a smaller manufacturing process and adding a second compute tile to the package.
The conversation follows several recent comments by a called Exist50 on a Reddit thread about Intel's financial results, which suggests that Nova Lake will indeed offer two compute dies, doubling the number of cores compared to Arrow Lake.
Meanwhile, the ostensible Zen 6 figure appears to show that AMD is working on a 24-core U based on a pair of 12-core chiplets. Currently, AMD's chiplets have a maximum of eight cores, and have done since the Ryzen 3000 lineup, but a move to 12 cores per chiplet, perhaps thanks to a smaller manufacturing process, could be on the cards.
Previous best gaming motherboard you can buy for an AMD U right now should still work with one of the new Zen 6 chips.
Of course, this is all speculation right now, based on a chat between two tech leakers, rather than any solid claims, but it's fun to imagine what might be coming in the future, and we have been stuck with the same core counts for several generations now – it's about time we had a change.
In the meantime, check out our Ryzen 7 Core Ultra 7 265K review, where we test one of Intel's latest Arrow Lake chips.