It doesn't seem long since Intel launched its 10th generation Comet Lake desktop CPUs. Now the company is readying for the next-gen in early 2021.  

The Rocket Lake series is said to be coming in the first quarter of next year and will offer support for PCIe gen 4.0. Meaning faster NVMe speeds that'll finally match AMD's offering. 

Intel is promising that those new processors will also be fantastic for gaming. It's also thought that the Rocket Lake CPUs will support Intel's 400-series chipset, meaning the same as the current Comet Lake setup. In other words, you'll be able to use your current motherboard if you have the latest generation already. 

Intel is also expected to use and support its Xe graphics, USB 4, Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6. There are also rumblings about possible support for new DDR5 RAM coming next year as well - though that would require new motherboards.

Rocket Lake will likely be the last of the 14nm desktop processors with 10nm Alder Lake architecture set to follow sometime in the near future. 

This news all comes on the same day that AMD is set to launch it's Zen 3 architecture, showing Intel is keen not to get left behind.