Intel 12th Gen Core 'Alder Lake-S' launch in November: PCIe 5.0 + DDR5

Intel's largest launch in a very long time will be later this year with its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" CPU family, which will reportedly be launching in November 2021 according to the latest rumors.

The introduction of Alder Lake-S will usher in Intel as the first with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory support, after AMD held PCIe 4.0 over Intel's head for a couple of years there, Intel will be the first with both PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support. PCIe 5.0 will be on all 600-series motherboards, but we will see some boards launching with DDR5 or DDR4 support -- some of that will be up to motherboard makers.

Wccftech says that Intel has told its partners that it is "planning to launch Alder Lake S in November of 2021. As with all timelines, this can move backward or forwards depending on a few variables but for now this has been communicated to partners and is mostly fixed".

• Read more: Intel Core-1800 CPU details: Alder Lake-S with 16C/24T @ up to 4.6GHz
• Read more: ASUS Z690 + ROG Maximus XIV mobos teased for Intel Alder Lake CPUs

The new Alder Lake die is rectangular in size, so that means that the LGA 1700 socket will be very different to previous-gen LGA sockets including the recent Rocket Lake-S range of CPUs with the flagship Core i9-11900K processor.

This means that you will need a new CPU cooler for your new Alder Lake-S processor, but it is a move that Intel is doing to better align itself with AMD and its platform-agnostic socket movement. This can change, but for the time being the new rumors suggest Intel is moving in this direction.

• Read more: Intel's 13th Gen Core CPU teased: Raptor Lake-S comes in 2022+
• Read more: Intel teases 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs on 10nm SuperFin for 2H 2021
• Read more: Intel's new Xe-HPG GPU spotted next to next-gen Alder Lake-S CPU
• Read more: AMD will support DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 in 2022, but Intel has DDR5 first

We are to expect a max core configuration of 16 cores and 24 threads, split across 8 cores and 16 threads based on Golden Cove while the remaining 8 cores and 8 threads would be based on Gracemont.

• eDP / 4DDI (DP, HDMI) Display Capabilities
• 2-Channel (Up To DDR5-4800 / Up To DDR4-3200) Memory Support
• x16 PCIe 5.0 / x4 PCIe 4.0 Lanes (CPU)
• PCIe Express 4.0 & PCIe Express 3.0 Support (600-Series Chipset)
• SATA 3.0
• Integrated Wi-Fi 6E
• Discrete Thunderbolt 4 (USB 4 Compliant)
• USB3 (20G) / USB3 (10G) / USB3 (5G) / USB 2.0
• Intel LAN PHY
• Intel Optane Memory H20 (H10 Successor)