Intel Razor Lake May Finally Take On AMD 3D V-Cache In Gaming Laptops

If you're up on the latest Intel leaks, you'll be well aware that the company's upcoming Nova Lake processors are expected to take the fight to AMD in a major way with Intel's own implementation of a 'big cache' design, known as "bLLC," meaning, you guessed it, "big last-level cache". (And if you weren't up on the leaks, well, now you are.) However, you can get AMD 3D V-Cache in a laptop, while it seems we'll need to wait until late 2027 or later before Intel directly answers that capability, too.

The chips launching late this year and/or early next year are codenamed Nova Lake. This is a major revision of the Arrow Lake design featuring new Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores that are expected to introduce some major new CPU features, including AVX10, Intel APX, and the long-awaited bLLC (on certain models.) Historically, Intel has brought its desktop silicon to mobile platforms in the form of the "HX" processors, like the Core i9-13980HX in the Alienware m18 R1, or more recently, the Core Ultra 9 285HX in the MSI Titan 18 HX AI.


According to serial Intel leaker Jaykihn, the Nova Lake parts coming with bLLC are only going to be available for desktop systems. This wouldn't be surprising, except longtime rival AMD does offer 3D V-Cache on its "HX" platforms, such as the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D in the ASUS ROG Strix G16 that we tested. Die-hard Intel fans waiting for a response to those chips will seemingly have to sit tight until the next-next-generation Razor Lake family, which seemingly will in fact include "HX" family processors with bLLC.

This is important, because game performance on standard processors without a massive last-level cache is at a huge disadvantage versus those that do have the extra local memory. Games are notoriously sensitive to memory performance, and a big cache means far fewer trips out to local memory for executable code, in turn increasing CPU performance dramatically. The first-generation 3D V-Cache CPU, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, was able to leap out ahead of the Core i9-12900K despite that chip demolishing the standard Ryzen 7 5800X in gaming tests beforehand. Intel's current Core Ultra 200K Plus CPUs do an admirable job of competing with AMD's finest when equipped with very fast memory, which makes us eager to see what Intel can do when it's on a level playing field in terms of last-level cache.


Jaykihn had some other information on the new chips that he revealed in response to questions from other X users: the Razor Lake-AX parts rumored to compete directly with AMD's Strix Halo won't have bLLC, and Razor Lake is said to use TSMC's N2X fabrication process for at least some portion of its tiles (though not many, based on earlier leaks). Perhaps more interestingly, Jaykihn says the "Griffin Cove" core that will be used in (some) Razor Lake processors is "a completely different core" versus Coyote Cove in Nova Lake, which could make the performance differences across the Razor Lake family considerable given that at least some Razor Lake processors are rebadged Nova Lake chips.

While Intel's Nova Lake chips sound incredibly impressive in terms of their specifications, we must repeat the mantra: wait for independent benchmarks. We'll naturally have full reviews of the parts as soon as we're allowed to post 'em up, so you can rest assured that we'll be fully documenting the battle between AMD's Zen 6 and Intel's Nova Lake before you can say "hey, the PS6 is coming out this year, right?"