Intel Nova Lake-S photo leak shows what the company's new gaming CPUs will look like

Intel Nova Lake-S is the company's big upcoming gaming CPU launch, with the new chip design expected to offer significant performance improvements over its current Core Ultra 200 lineup and arrive either late this year or early next year. Already known to use a new LGA 1954 motherboard socket, the socket layout has been revealed by a freshly leaked photo showing the underside of the CPU. Intel is being bullish about the power of its new chip design, which makes us wonder if it really could challenge the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D for top spot on our best gaming CPU guide. Not that we can glean performance from an image of the chip's pins, but it does reveal a few aspects of the new design.