Intel Z690 chipset detailed: 16 x PCIe 5.0 lanes for next-gen GPUs

Intel's next-gen Alder Lake CPU architecture and new 600-series chipset is right around the corner, with the flagship Core i9-12900K and flagship Z690 chipset getting some more details today.

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A new diagram for the Intel Z690 chipset has been posted by PC Inquisitor, where we can see that the new Z690 chipset has 1 x 16 + 2 x 8 lanes of PCIe 5.0 that are attached directly to the CPU. The Z690 chipset itself will have support for up to 12 x PCIe 4.0 lanes and up to 16 x PCIe 3.0 lanes.

We will see next-gen Z690-based motherboards -- which will surely be very expensive -- supporting an x16 PCIe 5.0 graphics card as well as 4 x high-speed PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs that will be able to push upwards of 7GB/sec reads. Now imagine a PCIe 5.0 SSD that will hit 15GB/sec+ on those new x16 PCIe 5.0 ports. Ohhh boy, oh boy, oh BOY.

Intel's new 12th Gen Core CPUs will also have support for next-gen DDR5 RAM, but there will be support for DDR4 AM as well. Intel has confirmed it will support both DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200 RAM on their new 600 series motherboards.

Intel is expected to unleash its new 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs in November, with Windows 11 dropping on October 5.