Intel Nova Lake's top desktop CPUs could draw 474 W as three-connector Z990 boards leak

A leaked photo of a bare Z990 motherboard has all but confirmed that Intel's highest-end Nova Lake desktop processors will carry a PL2 power limit of at least 474 W — roughly 220 W higher than anything Intel ships today. Leaker LC Tech Leaks on X spotted the board first, with BenchLife picking it up shortly after.

The smoking gun is three 8-pin CPU power connectors on the board, labelled 12V_2x4_1, 12V_2x4_2, and XTRA_12V. Current Intel Z890 boards — like MSI's MEG Z890 Ace — use two 8-pin connectors, which is already a step up from the old single-connector standard. A single 8-pin EPS connector handles roughly 230 W, so three of them comfortably supports the 474 W figure LC Tech Leaks is citing as the nominal performance ceiling for dual compute tile Nova Lake SKUs. Going above 474 W, according to the leaker, would put the chip into dual-die overclocking territory. For context, the Core i9-14900K — already notorious for its appetite — is rated to 253 W at PL2, though it regularly exceeds that in practice.

These extreme power figures apply specifically to the dual compute tile Nova Lake models, which are expected to pack up to 52 cores and are aimed squarely at workstation and enthusiast workloads rather than gaming. Standard single-tile Core Ultra Nova Lake chips — with eight P-cores and 16 E-cores — are expected to keep the same 125 W PL1 and 250 W PL2 configuration as current Arrow Lake processors. Intel is also expected to launch Nova Lake variants with large L3 caches to take on AMD's Ryzen X3D lineup in gaming, but those cache-heavy parts are likely to be dual compute tile designs as well, meaning they may also require three power connectors.

The practical upshot for most PC builders is that Z990 motherboards will likely split into two clear tiers: standard boards for single-tile chips and beefier, pricier boards for the dual-tile monsters. That's actually good news for gamers eyeing a cache-heavy Nova Lake part, since they should be able to skip the most expensive dual-tile-optimised boards if the gaming-focused SKUs land on single-tile silicon. Either way, no game currently in existence — or on the near horizon — needs 52 CPU cores, so the dual compute tile Nova Lake remains firmly in the "impressive spec sheet" category for anyone whose primary use case is gaming.