Intel's Core i9 Rocket Lake CPUs will get a glow up with new retail packaging

[Pete Flint]

Rumor mill: New retail packaging for Intel's 11th-gen Rocket Lake CPUs has been spotted in the wild and stands out from previous iterations. The hard plastic boxes have an odd shape that will stand out on shelves, which Intel likely hopes will increase hype around a generation of chips they need to be successful.

Intel Rocket Lake CPUs are slated to launch next month. A new leak from VideoCardz has revealed the packing we can expect to come with the top-of-the-line Core i9 chips. Based on the leaked images, the new packaging is made entirely, or at least largely, of hard plastic with opaque deep Intel blue on the front and back faces and translucent baby blue windows on the sides. The box looks like four trapezoids stacked front-to-back to give a look that should stand out from the pack.

Intel’s 10th gen packaging featured a small acrylic window and harkened back to the rectangular box design of 8th gen and earlier. This new box is more in line with the stand-out-in-a-crowd attitude that fed the design of the i9-9900k two years ago.

Packaging for the i9-11900KF, i9-11900, and i9-11900F (left to right)

According to the leak, apparently the i9-11900KF will be given the usual cube-shaped treatment, so the hard plastic box that will invariably serve as wall-hangings for many tech youtubers will be restricted to only the most enthusiast buyers.

Rocket Lake will be yet another release on the 14nm process node, backported from the new Sunny Cove architecture, which means it will see a number of improvements and up to 5.3GHz peak boost. That said, the core counts on these cards look to trail behind AMD’s current offering and Intel will need Rocket Lake to be a success as they work to fix their process node issues.

This new packaging will either celebrate a speedy new chip or try to gin up some interest (remember the Marvel-themed Intel packaging?) in a company under duress.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88693-intel-core-i9-rocket-lake-cpus-get-glow.html

 

[Nicromancer]

Who cares about the box....

 

[ET3D]

Who cares about the box....

That was once my line about RGB lighting, but it seems like I'm in the minority.

 

[Uncle Al]

Yeah .... to this day I am constantly amazed at the money companies put into packaging of high tech materials. I understand that when it comes to deodorant, cigarette's, and all the other junk that the spontaneous buyer will jump on, but computer equipment!?!?!?! Surely these people realize this .... don't they?

 

[Shadowboxer]

Ugh not again. It’s just a waste of plastic that will end up polluting the environment.

These are particularly bad. Not only is it made of plastic but they don’t stack neatly. Which means they take up more space in transit and increase the carbon shipping cost. It all adds up.

 

[paul1122]

Ugh not again. It’s just a waste of plastic that will end up polluting the environment.

These are particularly bad. Not only is it made of plastic but they don’t stack neatly. Which means they take up more space in transit and increase the carbon shipping cost. It all adds up.

Everyone is hearing a huge stretch in the background.

 

[candle_86]

Ugh not again. It’s just a waste of plastic that will end up polluting the environment.

These are particularly bad. Not only is it made of plastic but they don’t stack neatly. Which means they take up more space in transit and increase the carbon shipping cost. It all adds up.

Good, texas needed global warming this past werk

 

[brucek]

I guess if you can't shrink the process node you can at least expand the box.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Right, because the box makes ALL the difference. At least, until you actually take the CPU out of it. I swear, this is an extremely cynical move on Intel's part, thinking that people will choose it just because of a pretty box. Nobody who knows how to do a PC build is stupid enough that a box will change their minds so Intel's getting pretty desperate here.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

I looked. I laughed. Why would I want a crushed box?

 

[pcnthuziast]

Their marketing and branding is stronger than ever. You don't have to be the best or most affordable when you have good marketing and a solidified brand. Enthusiasts and savvy consumers know better, but the mainstream consumer who either doesn't know all the nitty gritty details or doesn't care, would rather buy snake oil from a silver tongue devil than a grand elixir from a doting stuffed shirt.

 

[punctualturn]

Who cares about the box....

Given that we are living on some weird times, where marketing is gospel and reviews are either bought or ignored because as I said, marketing wins, then I will say, the box matters a lot to those people.

 

[Adi6293]

Yeah .... to this day I am constantly amazed at the money companies put into packaging of high tech materials. I understand that when it comes to deodorant, cigarette's, and all the other junk that the spontaneous buyer will jump on, but computer equipment!?!?!?! Surely these people realize this .... don't they?

I used to have a shelve above my desk where I kept my boxes from my PC hardware, I don't do it anymore but I still appreciate when the box is nice especially when I'm paying hundreds of ££ for the item

 

[rmcrys]

Anyone still really thinking buying Intel?! So, for years they only improved the chips and heat / consumption because AMD and Apple made a lot of pressure, or we would still live in a 4 core with 150W TDP world! And GPUs would still be UHD630+++++ with software h265 8 bit.

So, all in all, I have zero AMD chips as I own a Surface Go 2 (no AMD chips there unfortunately) and a Mac Mini M1. Additionally my wife an Intel laptop as 5 years ago there was no Zen option for this model *but* I won't buy Intel for the next years even if they are the best in some years (or not), because I know that Intel just cares about selling.

My money will be for AMD or Apple if I need new machines.

 

[Reehahs]

They could have shaped it like a rocket but that is too much to expect of unimaginative Intel.

 

[Uncle Al]

I used to have a shelve above my desk where I kept my boxes from my PC hardware, I don't do it anymore but I still appreciate when the box is nice especially when I'm paying hundreds of ££ for the item

I do a similar thing but I prefer to use my old cigar boxes. They are more rigid and nothing beats ram chips that smell like an old stoggie!

 

[Inthenstus]

Ugh not again. It’s just a waste of plastic that will end up polluting the environment.

These are particularly bad. Not only is it made of plastic but they don’t stack neatly. Which means they take up more space in transit and increase the carbon shipping cost. It all adds up.

That’s the point.. when people stop
going into a store and falling for the marketing trap of “ooooh, shiny!!!” it won’t ever end. When a product takes up more space, and draws more eye attention, it gets more attention and has a higher chance to sell. It’s made headlines on multiple tech sites already just for being a new flashy box. It’s by design, and it’s working.

 

[Xausejo]

Yeah who cares about the box design, the important one is the performance of the processor..

 

[Inthenstus]

Yeah who cares about the box design, the important one is the performance of the processor..

I agree, but for that to change we need to nuke sheep market fanboys with fire from our battle cruisers.

 

[wiyosaya]

AMD demonstrates a strong showing in the CPU arena and Intel's response is a crumbled-looking box? Really, Intel?

 

[Avro Arrow]

I used to have a shelve above my desk where I kept my boxes from my PC hardware, I don't do it anymore but I still appreciate when the box is nice especially when I'm paying hundreds of ££ for the item

I really miss the flashy video card boxes of days past. That's where my avatar came from.

Two of my favourites of what was:

and

and now what is (yawn!):

and

Pure snooze-fest nowadays. When I worked at Tiger Direct, I used to love seeing the different artwork on the boxes because the good ones were cool and the bad ones were funny. Nobody had worse boxes than Palit but OMFG, they were hilarious because they always had the Palit frog. Here's the old GeForce 8500 GT 1GB (which I had) with their idea of what Robocop would have looked like if he were a frog:

 

[Avro Arrow]

They could have shaped it like a rocket but that is too much to expect of unimaginative Intel.

Wereweeb called them the new Intel CPUs the best name that I've ever heard for them... "Boiling Lake"! Maybe they could put this picture on the box (with "Intel Inside" of course!):

 

[Adi6293]

I really miss the flashy video card boxes of days past. That's where my avatar came from.

Two of my favourites of what was:

and

and now what is (yawn!):

and

Pure snooze-fest nowadays. When I worked at Tiger Direct, I used to love seeing the different artwork on the boxes because the good ones were cool and the bad ones were funny. Nobody had worse boxes than Palit but OMFG, they were hilarious because they always had the Palit frog. Here's the old GeForce 8500 GT 1GB (which I had) with their idea of what Robocop would have looked like if he were a frog:

Ahh that 4870 brings back memories, I built a PC for my friend with it, it was an XFX but it had a different singular fan on it, what a noisy card that was : - P , still for £450 we managed a decent 1080p PC!! Time's have changed so much.....

 

[Avro Arrow]

Ahh that 4870 brings back memories, I built a PC for my friend with it, it was an XFX but it had a different singular fan on it, what a noisy card that was : - P , still for £450 we managed a decent 1080p PC!! Time's have changed so much.....

That singular fan without the blower assembly was XFX's custom design. The blower model you see here was ATi's reference design. I have one of each because I bought the original blower model but when I bought a second one a year later for Crossfire (back when it worked amazingly well), there were only custom models left. It still worked just fine. I think that this is the one you're referring to:

I called it "The XFX Egg" 4870 (for obvious reasons) but I liked the original design better because the blower assembly made it more solid. To this day, that image on the XFX HD 4870 is my Techspot avatar.

 

[Adi6293]

That singular fan without the blower assembly was XFX's custom design. The blower model you see here was ATi's reference design. I have one of each because I bought the original blower model but when I bought a second one a year later for Crossfire (back when it worked amazingly well), there were only custom models left. It still worked just fine. I think that this is the one you're referring to:

I called it "The XFX Egg" 4870 (for obvious reasons) but I liked the original design better because the blower assembly made it more solid. To this day, that image on the XFX HD 4870 is my Techspot avatar.

Yep that is the card, I also prefer the blower style, I don't know what XFX was thinking : - D I still have the reference R9 290X as a spare card, that is also a jet engine lmao