Intel Rocket Lake-S confirmed for March 30 - 11700K already sold in Germany

A problem a lot of tech firms face is that unreleased products end up being sold prematurely or end up in the hands of testers. Later this month, Intel is expected to release its 11th Gen Core "Rocket Lake-S" processors but late last week something weird happened. Mindfactory, a well-known German e-tailer, started sales of the Core i7-11700K eight-core processor.

Various benchmarks hit German forums so it's 100% certain that Mindfactory shipped inventory of this processor. German tech site HardwareLuxx asked Intel for clarification about the Core i7-11700K and got to hear that this chip is still under embargo. Intel added that it would follow up as appropriate to end sales of this processor.

Rocket Lake-S gets official launch date

HardwareLuxx also received an official launch date from Intel. The blue team shared that the sales embargo for the 11th Gen Core processors ends on March 30, 2021 at 6 a.m. PT / 9 a.m. ET. Retailers selling chips before this date are technically breaking the embargo -- but Intel did not clarify whether Mindfactory was at fault here. Mindfactory has indicated that they're allowed to sell this processor, which may imply that a distributor is to blame for the early shipments of the 11700K. As VideoCardz points out, it's definitely a weird situation.

Surprisingly the retailer claimed that it is allowed to sell the product. This implies that whichever distributor had provided the CPUs to the retailer, has not ensured that sales embargo were communicated properly.

Intel Rocket Lake-S specifications leak

In case you're wondering about the specifications of the 11th Gen Core desktop processors, WCCF Tech has an exclusive leak over here. The site managed to gather the specifications of all upcoming Core i7 and Core i9 models. All of these are eight-core editions, there are no specifications in this list about the six-core Core i5 models.

The flagship part is the 11900K -- it promises a 5.3GHz single-core Boost and 4.8GHz all-core Boost. WCCF Tech speculates Rocket Lake-S will be able to reclaim the performance crown from AMD and the site believes that Intel will be able to recapture marketshare because unlike AMD it's not as restricted by manufacturing capacity.

Intel cancels Performance Tuning Protection Plan

Performance Tuning Protection Plan what? I had to do a search in our archives but I was able to retrieve this old story from 2012! At the time, Intel introduced an overclocking warranty scheme that for $20 to $35 per year, depending on the SKU. To limit abuse, the plan offered customers a single hassle-free processor replacement in case damage was caused by overclocking. This is a type of damage not covered by the regular product warranty.

Over the past nine years, I've heard exactly zilch about this program. As such, it's no surprise to see Intel is finally getting rid of these plans. I don't think anyone will miss it.

In a statement to customers, Intel explains confidence in overclocking has grown among customers, and that demand for these insurance plans was low.

To PTPP Customers,

The Performance Tuning Protection Plan program has been discontinued.

As customers increasingly overclock with confidence, we are seeing lower demand for the Performance Tuning Protection Plans (PTPP).
As a result, Intel will no longer offer new PTPP plans effective March 1, 2021.

Intel will continue focusing on delivering amazing processors with tuning flexibility and overclocking tools like Intel Performance Maximizer and Intel XTU.

All existing plans will continue to be honored through the duration of the processor warranty period.
For questions, contact Intel Customer Support.

Note about the intel xeon W-31 75X Processor
The intel xeon W-31 75X Processor is automatically covered for overclocking, No additional plan or activation code is required

Thank You,
PTPP Team

We now have an official sales date:

"The sales embargo for 11th Gen Desktop processors (Rocket Lake S) is March 30, 2021 at 6 a.m. PT / 9 a.m. ET."

— Andreas Schilling (@aschilling) March 2, 2021