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A recent leak from the good folks over at VideoCardz has given us a better look at what the upcoming Alder lake CPUs from Intel will look like. The pictures released show us some rather significant changes in the pipeline for Intel’s 12th-generation line of processors, including a new socket and a new platform.
Intel Alder Lake’s New Shape
One of the biggest changes for Intel’s 12th-gen chips is that they will be moving from their traditional square-shaped CPU design to a new rectangular design. The exact dimensions will be 37.5 x 45.0mm compared to the regular 37.5 x 37.5mm of the square-shaped design. With these new dimensions, it does mean that all future CPUs wouldn’t be compatible with existing socket layouts, so new sockets would be required for Alder Lakes-S in the form of the LGA 1700 Socket. The back of the chip is still laid out in the same kind of design with 1700 gold contact pads with an array of caps fused in the middle of the PCB.
Intel Alder Lake’s New Design
The Alder lakes CPUs will be the first to feature a sub 14nm process node, also known as 10nm SuperFin or 10++. Not only this, but they will also be the first mainstream CPU lineup to feature a mixture of smaller “Atom” cores and bigger “Core” cores packaged together. This is why the new design will be rectangular over square. This kind of big.SMALL design has already featured on smartphones for a while now, but this will be the first time it crosses over into the high-performance segment.
| Intel CPU Family | Processor Process | Processor Cores (Max) | TDPs | Platform Chipset | Platform | Memory Support | PCIe Support | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sandy Bridge | 32nm | 4/8 | 35-95W | 6-Series | LGA 1155 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 2.0 | 2011 |
| Ivy Bridge | 22nm | 4/8 | 35-77W | 7-Series | LGA 1155 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2012 |
| Haswell | 22nm | 4/8 | 35-84W | 8-Series | LGA 1150 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2013-2014 |
| Broadwell | 14nm | 4/8 | 65-65W | 9-Series | LGA 1150 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2015 |
| Skylake | 14nm | 4/8 | 35-91W | 100-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4/DDR3L | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2015 |
| Kaby Lake | 14nm | 4/8 | 35-91W | 200-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4/DDR3L | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2017 |
| Coffee Lake | 14nm | 6/12 | 35-95W | 300-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2017 |
| Coffee Lake | 14nm | 8/16 | 35-95W | 300-Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2018 |
| Comet Lake | 14nm | 10/20 | 35-125W | 400-Series | LGA 1200 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2020 |
| Rocket Lake | 14nm | 8/16 | TBA | 400/500-Series | LGA 1200 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 4.0 | 2021 |
| Alder Lake | 10nm? | 16/24? | TBA | TBA | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2021 |
| Meteor Lake | 7nm? | TBA | TBA | TBA | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2022? |
Intel Alder Lake Release Date
So far, we don’t have a specific release date for these 12th-gen Intel CPUs, but we do know they are slated for release in the second half of 2021 following on from the recent Comet Lake release, and the Rocket Lake series in early 2021.
