Following on from reports of early Intel 11th Gen Core CPU sales in Europe, Intel has issued a statement, confirming that Rocket Lake-S processors will indeed be releasing in March. To be more exact, the launch date is set for the 30th of March.
For those of you who are unaware of the situation, German retailer Mindfactory has been selling the unannounced Core i7-11700K for some time. To clarify this situation, HardwareLuxx asked Intel what was going on, as these CPUs weren't available anywhere else. To that, Intel answered it is aware of the situation and is taking “appropriate” measures to deal with it.
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
As it seems, Mindfactory selling the Core i7-11700K wasn't a mere accident. The retailer says it “was allowed to offer this product”, implying that the distributor may not have informed them of the embargo in place.
Speaking of the sales embargo, Intel confirmed that it is set to end on the 30th of March at 6AM Pacific Time. This matches our latest report regarding the launch, which suggested an announcement event in mid-March followed by retail availability of Rocket Lake-S CPUs two weeks later.
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KitGuru says: Are you planning on upgrading your system with a new CPU? Are you thinking about grabbing an Intel 11th Gen Core CPU at launch?