A new leak detailing Intel’s unreleased Nova Lake-S desktop processors is making the rounds this week, and the detail getting the least attention might be the most telling. Buried in a table of four processor models is a chip called the Core Ultra 9 4900 BFC: 22 cores, rated at just 65 watts. Three rows above it sits the Core Ultra 7 4870K BFC, with 24 cores and a 125-watt rating. Two more cores pushed the power ceiling up by 92%. That is not how core counts are supposed to work.

The leak, first published by the YouTube channel Laurent’s Choice and since picked up by Wccftech, ThePCEnthusiast, and other outlets, lists specifications for a handful of Nova Lake-S desktop parts ahead of an expected early-2027 launch. Intel has not confirmed any of the names, core counts, cache figures, or power numbers in the table. But if the numbers hold up even loosely, they point to a lineup where power rating and core count have stopped moving in lockstep, something that has not really been true of Intel’s mainstream desktop chips before.

What the Leaked Table Actually Shows

Four Nova Lake-S models appear in the portion of the leak that has circulated most widely, each carrying the new four-digit Core Ultra 4000 naming scheme rather than the Core Ultra 200S numbering used on the current Arrow Lake desktop lineup, as Wccftech reported. The flagship is the Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC, listed with 8 performance cores, 16 efficiency cores, and 4 low-power efficiency cores, for 28 cores total, paired with a 125-watt base rating and a 32-execution-unit integrated GPU. Just below it sits the Core Ultra 9 4950K, which drops to 24 cores (8 P-cores, 16 E-cores) while keeping the same 125-watt rating. The Core Ultra 7 4870K BFC also lands at 24 cores and 125 watts, but with a different core split of 8 P-cores, 12 E-cores, and 4 low-power E-cores. Then there’s the outlier: the Core Ultra 9 4900 BFC, with 6 P-cores, 12 E-cores, and 4 low-power E-cores for 22 cores, rated at only 65 watts.

Lay those four numbers side by side and the pattern breaks down fast. Two chips share a core count of 24 and share a 125-watt rating. One chip has four more cores than both of them and still sits at 125 watts. And one chip has only two fewer cores than those 24-core parts yet is rated at little more than half the power. Shattered.io covered the 28-core, 125-watt flagship comparison when the first wave of the leak surfaced, and a separate report detailed the 144MB cache figures tied to the same table. What hadn’t been fully explored yet is the 4900 BFC’s power number, and it’s the one that undercuts the easy assumption that more cores always means a bigger power budget.

Table: The Leaked Nova Lake-S Lineup

Model (leaked)Core Config (P+E+LPE)Total CoresPower RatingiGPUCache Feature
Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC8+16+428125W32 EUbLLC
Core Ultra 9 4950K8+16+024125WUnconfirmedNone listed
Core Ultra 7 4870K BFC8+12+424125WUnconfirmedbLLC
Core Ultra 9 4900 BFC6+12+42265WUnconfirmedbLLC

All four entries are leaked data, not confirmed Intel specifications, and the table should be read with that caveat attached to every cell. Core counts, cache sizes, and the BFC suffix itself are also unconfirmed as official branding, since Intel has released nothing about Nova Lake-S pricing, performance, or positioning.

Why the 22-Core Chip Is the Interesting One

Most coverage of this leak has focused on the 4970K BFC, because 28 cores and a claimed 144MB of cache make for an easy headline. But the 4900 BFC’s 65-watt rating is the number that actually tells you something about how Intel is structuring this generation. A chip with 22 cores pulling less than half the power of a chip with 24 cores only makes sense if the extra cores in the 125-watt parts are doing meaningfully more work, or if Intel is deliberately building a low-power SKU that trades clock speed for efficiency rather than scaling cores down proportionally with the power budget.

That second explanation lines up with how Intel’s P-core and E-core split has worked since Alder Lake. Efficiency cores add throughput for multi-threaded work without demanding much power individually, so a chip can carry a high core count at a low wattage as long as it leans on E-cores rather than P-cores. The 4900 BFC’s 6 P-core, 12 E-core, 4 low-power-E-core split backs that up: it has the fewest performance cores of the four leaked parts, which likely explains why its power ceiling is so much lower despite a core count that beats plenty of past Intel flagships.

What “BFC” and “bLLC” Actually Mean Here

Three of the four leaked chips carry a BFC suffix, and all three are also tied to a cache feature the leak labels bLLC, reported as standing for “big last-level cache.” The 4970K BFC is said to carry up to 144MB of this cache. Intel has not confirmed what BFC stands for, nor has it confirmed the bLLC branding or capacity figures. What the leak does make clear is that BFC models consistently add four low-power efficiency cores on top of the core configuration found in their non-BFC counterparts, alongside the larger cache allocation.

That pairing (extra low-power cores plus extra cache, bundled under one suffix) suggests Intel is building two distinct product tiers rather than one. Shattered.io’s earlier report on the BFC cache strategy versus AMD’s X3D lineup goes deeper on the cache side of that split. For this story, the relevant point is that the BFC suffix appears to be doing two jobs at once: adding cores for background and multi-threaded workloads, and adding cache for workloads, like gaming, that benefit from keeping more data close to the CPU. Bundling both under one badge makes the naming scheme confusing, but it also explains why core count alone stopped predicting power rating somewhere around this leak.

Who Is Laurent’s Choice, and How Reliable Is This Leak

The leak traces back to Laurent’s Choice, a technology YouTube channel that posted the specification table on X in the first days of October. Multiple outlets, including Wccftech and ThePCEnthusiast, picked up and corroborated the table’s contents within the same reporting window, though corroboration in this context means outlets are citing the same leaked table rather than independently confirming it against Intel. No outlet in the current reporting cycle claims to have verified the figures with Intel directly, and Intel has issued no statement on the leak as of this writing.

Leaked CPU roadmaps have a mixed track record industry-wide. Some leaks land close to final retail specs, others get revised repeatedly before launch, and power ratings in particular tend to shift late in a chip’s development as Intel and its partners tune boost behavior for different motherboard tiers. The leaked base-power figures here almost certainly describe PL1 ratings rather than real-world sustained draw, meaning actual power consumption under a motherboard’s default boost settings could run well above the listed number, a pattern that has shown up repeatedly on Intel’s last several desktop generations.

Historical Context: Intel’s Messy Relationship With TDP

Intel’s desktop power ratings have been a source of confusion for years, largely because the published number rarely matches what the chip draws once a motherboard applies its own power limits. The Core i9-14900K, still one of the more recognizable flagship chips from Intel’s prior Raptor Lake Refresh generation, carries a 125-watt base rating but is widely documented pulling well over 250 watts under sustained all-core load with boost enabled, a gap that became a running complaint among desktop builders and reviewers.

Arrow Lake, Intel’s current Core Ultra 200S desktop generation, was pitched as a correction to that pattern, with Intel and outlets like PCMag framing it around improved performance-per-watt rather than simply chasing higher clocks. If the Nova Lake leak is accurate, Intel appears to be extending that efficiency framing into the naming and power structure of the next generation by letting core count and cache capacity vary independently of the base power number, rather than scaling power up every time cores go up. Whether that holds under real motherboard boost profiles, the way Arrow Lake’s promised efficiency gains partly did and partly didn’t, is a separate question the leak can’t answer.

Table: Nova Lake’s Leaked Numbers vs. Current Desktop Chips

ChipGenerationCoresPower RatingStatus
Core Ultra 9 4970K BFCNova Lake-S (leaked)28125WUnconfirmed leak
Core Ultra 9 4900 BFCNova Lake-S (leaked)2265WUnconfirmed leak
Core Ultra 9 285KArrow Lake / Core Ultra 200S24125W (base)Shipping
Core i9-14900KRaptor Lake Refresh24125W (base)Shipping
Ryzen 9 9950XAMD Ryzen 9000 (Zen 5)16170WShipping

The Core Ultra 9 285K and Core i9-14900K rows reflect Intel’s own published base-power specifications for shipping products, included here only as reference points for how Intel has rated 24-core-class desktop chips in the two generations immediately before Nova Lake. The Nova Lake rows remain leaked, unconfirmed figures.

Competitive Comparison: Intel’s Cache Bet vs. AMD’s X3D Lineup

AMD’s current desktop lineup splits along a similar but distinct line. The standard Ryzen 9000 series (Zen 5) chips, built for general performance across productivity and gaming workloads, sit alongside the Ryzen 9000X3D models, which add AMD’s stacked 3D V-Cache specifically to boost gaming performance rather than core count. Shattered.io’s report on the leaked AMD Ryzen 9 5900X3D and its 128MB cache figure shows AMD pursuing a comparable strategy of pairing a specific SKU tier with a large cache allocation rather than spreading it across the whole stack.

If the bLLC branding in the Nova Lake leak holds up, Intel looks to be borrowing the same playbook: a cache-heavy tier, flagged by its own suffix, sitting above the standard core-count-driven tier. The difference, at least in what’s leaked so far, is that Intel’s BFC models bundle the cache bump together with extra low-power E-cores, while AMD’s X3D chips generally keep the same core configuration as their non-X3D counterparts and change only the cache. That’s a meaningfully different approach to the same competitive problem: convincing gamers and reviewers that a bigger cache, not just a higher clock speed or core count, is worth paying for.

Market Impact: What This Means for Builders and OEMs

For PC builders, a lineup where power rating doesn’t track core count in a predictable way complicates the usual shorthand of picking a cooler and power supply based on core count or product tier alone. A buyer who assumes a Core Ultra 9 badge always means the top power tier would be wrong about the 4900 BFC, which carries the same Ultra 9 branding as the 125-watt flagship while running at roughly half the rated power. That naming overlap, if it survives to retail, could create confusion at the point of sale that reviewers and retailers will need to flag explicitly in spec sheets.

For OEMs building pre-configured desktops, the spread matters more directly. A 65-watt, 22-core chip opens the door to smaller form-factor systems and quieter cooling solutions that couldn’t accommodate a 125-watt part, while still offering a core count competitive with recent mid-range desktop chips. If Intel is deliberately building that option into the Nova Lake stack rather than treating it as an afterthought, it suggests a push toward SFF and all-in-one desktop designs that need multi-core throughput without a full tower cooler.

The Platform Side: LGA1954

Reporting on the leak also ties Nova Lake-S to a new LGA1954 socket, replacing the LGA1851 socket used by Arrow Lake. A socket change means a new motherboard generation regardless of which specific SKU a buyer picks, which raises the stakes on getting the power and cooling planning right from the start of a new platform rather than retrofitting it later. Shattered.io previously reported on Nova Lake parts clearing USB4 80Gbps and PCIe 5.0 compliance testing, which points to the new platform already being far enough along in validation that these power and core figures, even if not final, are likely close to the shape of the real lineup.

Why Power Rating Stopped Tracking Core Count

Step back from the individual chips and the broader shift is about what a “core” costs in power terms depending on its type. A performance core and a low-power efficiency core are not interchangeable units, and a chip that adds four low-power E-cores, like the jump from the 4950K to the 4970K BFC, can gain cores without materially changing the power envelope, because those cores are specifically engineered to sip power under light loads. A chip that instead cuts performance cores, like the drop from 24-core 125-watt parts down to the 4900 BFC’s 6-P-core, 22-core total, can shed a large chunk of its power budget even while keeping a comparatively high total core count.

That is the real story in this leak: core count became a less reliable proxy for power draw the moment Intel’s core mix diversified into three tiers (P-cores, E-cores, and low-power E-cores) instead of one. Reviewers and buyers who still shop by core count alone, a habit built over a decade of simpler single-core-type chips, are going to need to start reading the P-core/E-core breakdown before assuming anything about power, heat, or cooling requirements.

What’s Still Unconfirmed

It’s worth restating plainly what this leak does not establish. Intel has not confirmed any of the model names, including the 4970K BFC, 4950K, 4870K BFC, or 4900 BFC. The 125-watt and 65-watt figures are leaked base-power numbers, not confirmed TDP or PL2 boost figures, and real-world power draw under default motherboard settings could land well above either number once retail boards apply their own limits. The bLLC cache feature and its 144MB capacity figure are unconfirmed, as is the meaning of the BFC suffix itself. No release date, price, or final product positioning has been confirmed by Intel for any Nova Lake-S model, and reporting generally places a launch announcement around early 2027, with no firm date attached by Intel.

Predictions: Where Nova Lake Goes From Here

  • Intel will likely keep the BFC/non-BFC split as a two-tier structure at launch, using it to separate cache-and-core-heavy gaming-oriented parts from standard productivity-oriented chips, mirroring AMD’s X3D/non-X3D divide.
  • Expect the 65-watt power figure on the 4900 BFC to draw scrutiny from reviewers at launch, given how far actual draw strayed from base ratings on recent Intel generations like Raptor Lake Refresh.
  • A second wave of Nova Lake leaks covering pricing and clock speeds is likely before CES 2027, following the pattern of Arrow Lake’s own pre-launch leak cycle.
  • Motherboard vendors will probably confirm LGA1954 board designs well before Intel comments on specific SKU power figures, since socket and VRM design typically leaks earlier than final binning data.
  • AMD is likely to respond to any confirmed Intel cache push with its own X3D refresh messaging, continuing the back-and-forth cache marketing that has defined desktop CPU competition since the first Ryzen X3D chips.

The Takeaway

Nothing in this leak is confirmed, and Intel could revise every number before Nova Lake-S actually reaches retail. But the shape of the leaked lineup, four chips where core count and power rating move independently rather than together, lines up with where Intel’s architecture has been heading since it split cores into performance and efficiency types. The headline-grabbing 28-core flagship matters less for understanding Nova Lake than the quieter 22-core chip sitting at 65 watts, because that’s the SKU that shows Intel is willing to build a genuinely low-power, high-core-count option rather than just scaling one design up and down. Readers tracking Intel’s broader desktop roadmap can also check Shattered.io’s coverage of the 144MB cache figures reported in the same leak for more on the bLLC side of this story, alongside the hardware section for ongoing CPU and GPU coverage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Intel Nova Lake leak officially confirmed by Intel?

No. Intel has not confirmed the model names, core counts, cache figures, or power ratings reported in this leak. All figures trace back to a table attributed to the YouTube channel Laurent’s Choice and should be treated as unverified until Intel comments.

How many cores does the leaked Intel Core Ultra 9 4970K BFC have?

The leak lists the 4970K BFC with 28 total cores, made up of 8 performance cores, 16 efficiency cores, and 4 low-power efficiency cores, alongside a 125-watt power rating and a 32-execution-unit integrated GPU.

Why is the 22-core Core Ultra 9 4900 BFC rated at only 65 watts?

The leaked spec table lists only 6 performance cores on the 4900 BFC, the fewest of the four leaked chips, with the remaining 16 cores split between efficiency and low-power efficiency types. Fewer performance cores typically means a lower power ceiling, even with a comparatively high total core count.

What does the BFC suffix mean on Nova Lake chips?

Intel has not confirmed what BFC stands for. In the leaked table, BFC models consistently add four low-power efficiency cores and a larger cache allocation, referred to in reporting as bLLC, compared to their non-BFC counterparts.

When will Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs launch?

No official launch date has been confirmed. Reporting on the leak generally points to an early 2027 timeframe, with some coverage suggesting a CES 2027 announcement, but Intel has not confirmed any date.

Will Nova Lake-S use a new CPU socket?

Reports tied to the leak indicate Nova Lake-S will move to a new LGA1954 socket, replacing the LGA1851 socket used by the current Arrow Lake (Core Ultra 200S) desktop generation. This has not been officially confirmed by Intel.

How does the leaked Nova Lake power data compare to AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series?

AMD’s shipping Ryzen 9 9950X carries a 170-watt rating with 16 cores, well above the 125-watt ratings on the leaked 24-core and 28-core Nova Lake parts. Direct comparisons remain limited, though, since the Nova Lake figures are unconfirmed leaks and AMD’s X3D gaming-focused variants, which compete most directly with Intel’s cache-heavy BFC models, carry their own separate power ratings not reflected in the leak.