The rumor mill is in overdrive proper now. Whether or not it’s CPUs, GPUs or motherboards, we all know for certain that the again finish of 2022 is shaping as much as be completely mega for PC lovers.
Intel is on the brink of launch its thirteenth Gen Raptor Lake CPU vary and accompanying 700 sequence motherboards. Being primarily based on the LGA 1700 platform, with again compatibility with 600 sequence boards confirmed (opens in new tab), we have now a good suggestion of what to anticipate so far as options go. However much less clear is that regardless of the platform supporting PCI Categorical 5.0, affirmation as as to whether 700 sequence motherboards will assist PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives is much less sure.
Based on an image leaked from a presentation at an Intel NAS workshop in China (through @9550pro (opens in new tab)and Videocardz (opens in new tab)), the 700 sequence motherboards is not going to have devoted PCIe 5.0 lanes for an M.2 drive. The overview in query states that there can be 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes (usually allotted to the first x16 slot to be used by a GPU) with an extra 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes for an M.2 drive. The x8 DMI lanes join the CPU to the chipset. Total, the PCIe complement is similar as that supplied by the Z690 platform.
Which will battle with one other leak from Moore’s Regulation is Lifeless (opens in new tab). Or does it? There’s no cause {that a} motherboard producer can’t break up the 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes. 8 to the GPU and a couple of x 4 for a pair of M.2 slots could be doable. That will give the looks of being suboptimal for prime finish boards, despite the fact that an x8 PCIe 5.0 slot is equal to an x16 PCIe 4.0 slot and shouldn’t have any noticeable affect on GPU efficiency, even with a subsequent era flagship card.
The identical slide additionally mentions that the 700 sequence platform will formally assist DDR5-5600, further USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 ports and Thunderbolt 4. Apparently, Intel’s Optane SSD storage expertise remains to be supported, despite the fact that it’s useless on the shopper stage (opens in new tab).
There’s additionally affirmation that some SKUs will characteristic greater core counts and that L2 and L3 cache sizes have been elevated (opens in new tab). The latter will definitely assist to spice up gaming efficiency very similar to it did with AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
Whereas Raptor Lake seems to be extra of an evolutionary improve than a revolutionary one, it will be fascinating to see what impact the additional cache and core depend has, to not point out the rumored improve in frequency (opens in new tab). thirteenth Gen CPUs are anticipated to make their debut inside the subsequent few months. It should compete with AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs and 600 sequence platform that can launch across the identical time.
