The rumor mill is in overdrive proper now. Whether or not it’s CPUs, GPUs or motherboards, we all know for positive that the again finish of 2022 is shaping as much as be completely mega for PC fanatics.
Intel is on the point of launch its thirteenth Gen Raptor Lake CPU vary and accompanying 700 collection motherboards. Being primarily based on the LGA 1700 platform, with again compatibility with 600 collection boards confirmed (opens in new tab), we now have 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 if 700 collection motherboards will assist PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives is much less sure.
In accordance with 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 collection motherboards is not going to have devoted PCIe 5.0 lanes for an M.2 drive. The overview in query states that there might 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. General, the PCIe complement is identical as that provided by the Z690 platform.
That will battle with one other leak from Moore’s Regulation is Lifeless (opens in new tab). Or does it? There’s no motive {that a} motherboard producer can’t cut 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 might give the looks of being suboptimal for top finish boards, though 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 technology flagship card.
The identical slide additionally mentions that the 700 collection platform will formally assist DDR5-5600, further USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 ports and Thunderbolt 4. Curiously, Intel’s Optane SSD storage know-how continues to be supported, though it’s useless on the shopper stage (opens in new tab).
There’s additionally affirmation that some SKUs will function larger 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 like 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 rely has, to not point out the rumored enhance in frequency (opens in new tab). thirteenth Gen CPUs are anticipated to make their debut inside the subsequent few months. It is going to compete with AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs and 600 collection platform that can launch across the identical time.
