Intel's Nova Lake desktop chip will pull 474W — and Z990 boards are ready with three power connectors
Intel’s next flagship desktop processor is going to be a power-hungry beast. Nova Lake-S, the company’s upcoming Core Ultra 400 series, will ship with a dual-chiplet design that draws up to 474W under maximum turbo load — and the Z990 chipset boards being built for it will carry three 8-pin EPS power connectors to keep up.
The chip: 52 cores, dual chiplets
Nova Lake-S is a big architectural change for Intel’s desktop lineup. The top-end SKU packs 52 cores across two compute chiplets: 16 performance cores, 32 efficiency cores, and 4 low-power efficiency cores on the SoC tile. That’s more than double the 24-core ceiling on current Arrow Lake-S chips.
The power draw jumps in proportion. According to leaker LC Tech Leaks, Intel has circulated revised Z990 power delivery guidelines to motherboard makers. The dual-chiplet Nova Lake processors carry a PL1 base power of 150W, a PL2 maximum turbo power approaching 474W, and a PL4 instantaneous peak ceiling that can hit 854W. Anything above 474W falls into overclocking territory.
The boards: Triple 8-pin, but not on every model
Z990 motherboards are being designed to handle those numbers, and the headline feature is a third 8-pin EPS CPU power connector. Leaker Jaykihn clarified that three connectors are not mandatory across the board — Intel’s 900-series platform supports four power tiers (35W, 65W, 125W, and 175W), each with two configuration variants. Only the 175W “Performance” tier requires the triple-connector setup.
| Tier | Configuration Variants | 8-pin EPS Connectors | Target CPUs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35W | 2 | 1 | Low-power / entry-level |
| 65W | 2 | 1 | Mainstream |
| 125W | 2 | 2 | Mid-range / enthusiast |
| 175W Performance | 2 | 3 | 44/52-core flagships |
Most flagship Z990 boards will still target the 175W standard, so triple connectors will be common on premium models. Jaykihn noted that while board makers could technically add three 8-pin EPS connectors to a hypothetical Z970 board, nobody is expected to bother — anyone buying a 44- or 52-core Nova Lake chip should plan on a 175W-class Z990.
Gigabyte already showed a prototype at Computex 2026 with three EPS 8-pin connectors and an FCLGA1954 socket. The timeline and power delivery design strongly point to it being a Z990 board for the Nova Lake-S platform.
Jaykihn also warned that installing a dual-chiplet CPU on a board rated below its PL1 will force the system to run at a lower performance profile by default. Intel requires these chips to be paired with Z990 boards — similar to how AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D would underperform on an A620 chipset.
The timeline: delayed to 2027
Intel initially confirmed a second-half 2026 launch for Nova Lake, but sources at Computex 2026 indicated the timeline has slipped. The first chips — single-chiplet 28-core models — are now expected in Q1 2027, likely at CES 2027 in January. The dual-chiplet 52-core flagship will follow two to three months later, putting it around May or June 2027.
That puts Intel’s next-generation desktop push roughly a year behind its original roadmap. The company needs Nova Lake to deliver on its promises: leaked engineering samples showed single-core performance gains around 20% and multi-core scores roughly doubling over Arrow Lake. But with AMD’s Zen 6 architecture also on the horizon, Intel’s window to reclaim the desktop performance crown is narrowing.