Intel Bartlett Lake-S Desktop CPUs Might Feature SKUs With 12 P-Cores, Target Network & Edge First

It was recently reported that Intel was preparing its Bartlett Lake-S Desktop CPU lineup as a refresh for its LGA 1700 platforms and it looks like Benchlife has some additional information surrounding the family.

It is reported that while Intel Bartlett Lake-S is a follow-up to the Raptor Lake-S (Refresh) family, it has some similarities with the existing lineup but there are also some key differences. The lineup is said to be designed for Network & Edge applications which fall within Intel's NEX business and that is mainly where this family will be targeted. It is only after covering this segment that Intel might be evaluating a DIY launch.

In addition to that, the Intel Bartlett Lake-S Desktop CPU family is expected to offer up to 24 cores & 32 threads, similar to the current top chips such as the Core i9-14900K and Core i9-13900K but it looks like there might be some special variations that ship only with P-Cores. A potential variant is said to offer as many as 12 P-cores. These P-Core-only models might have benefits and this would be the first chip from Intel on its mainstream consumer platform to offer more than 8 P-Cores. Both the 14900K and 13900K max out at 8 P-Cores.

Other than that, there are reports of faster AI performance which can be enabled through the use of certain AI accelerators though the biggest upgrade is expected to land with Arrow Lake-S later in 2024. We don't know if the AI performance benefits come from an NPU or just certain on-board AI hardware cores but Intel has rolled out its first NPU with the Meteor Lake chips and we could see it in some form or shape with Bartlett Lake-S CPUs.

Other specifications such as support on the LGA 1700 socket, DDR5/DDR4 memory, and the UHD 770 iGPU remain the same. Once again, a DIY consumer launch of the Bartlett Lake-S CPU platform isn't entirely confirmed and it has been absent from Intel's consumer roadmaps but Intel does have a major event lined up for next month so we may hear more during that.