The crystal of the eight-core Intel Core i7-11700K turned out to be almost a third more than that of the ten-core Core i9-10900K
When the characteristics of future Intel Rocket Lake processors were beginning to be discussed, some sources explained the decrease in the number of cores in the older model from ten to eight, not so much by the architectural features as by the banal economy of the die area. Now everyone has the opportunity to look at the naked crystal of the Core i7-11700K model.
Officially, Intel’s Rocket Lake-S processors are not yet on sale, but one German online store accidentally released more than two hundred copies on sale, and now they have found owners around the world. The Canadian forum member Overclock.net was able to boast of even having two copies of the Core i7-11700K. This processor, we recall, has the same eight cores as the older model of the Rocket Lake-S family, and they would have the same crystal anyway for unification reasons.
The Canadian enthusiast disposed of one of the Core i7-11700K processor copies in a very peculiar way, removing the standard heat spreader cover. As it turned out, this manipulation brought the processor into an inoperative state. Still, it made it possible to visually estimate the crystal size, which is produced according to the well-known 14-nm process technology. As calculated by representatives of the VideoCardz website, Rocket Lake processors in this configuration have a die area from 260 to 270 mm 2. This is about 28% more than in the case of the ten-core Core i9-10900K. The increase in the area turned out to be solid, so the hypothesis that the older Rocket Lake has only eight cores due to the economy of the “transistor budget” looks quite plausible.
