Leaked Intel Nova Lake-S image confirms new LGA-1954 socket and a notch placement that kills backward compatibility

The first image of an Intel Nova Lake-S desktop CPU has leaked online, giving us our earliest look at the processor that will sit in Intel's new LGA-1954 socket. Posted on X by user PoTAToOOOO, the image shows the pad side of the chip, labeled simply as "NovaLake-S LGA1954."

The photo confirms several details about the new platform. The notch placement on Nova Lake-S has moved from the left side, where it sits on current Arrow Lake-S processors, to the right side, making the chip physically incompatible with older sockets. The overall package size also differs, so there is no question of backward compatibility. The leaker notes that the front side of the package looks almost identical to Intel's Alder Lake 12th Gen processors in terms of general layout, though the socket has moved from LGA-1700 to LGA-1954.

The pad layout on the backside shows at least 35 capacitors, compared to 36 on the current Core Ultra 9 285K, with more contact pads distributed along the edges than on current-generation offerings. The chip will support both single-lever and dual-lever ILM socket configurations.

That said, based on what we already know, Nova Lake-S is shaping up to be Intel's most significant desktop platform update in years. The lineup will be branded under the Core Ultra Series 4 family and will introduce two new core architectures, Coyote Cove P-Cores and Arctic Wolf E-Cores, alongside a mix of Xe3 and Xe3P integrated graphics. The desktop lineup will come in single- and dual-compute tile variants, with the single tile offering up to 28 cores and 144MB of bLLC cache, and the dual tile offering up to 52 cores and 288MB of cache.

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Nova Lake-S is expected to launch on Intel's 900-series motherboards in early 2027, with chipsets including Z990, Z970, B960, Q970, and W980 anticipated. With socket photos, motherboard listings, and now a CPU package image all surfacing, LGA-1954 is appearing in more places before Intel's formal announcement.