Intel Clarifies Meteor Lake is Not for Desktop PCs: Not in Socketed Form

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Meteor Lake is not coming to an LGA1851 socket near you.

Intel Meteor Lake Graphics presentation slide deck
(Image credit: Intel)

Although Intel's Meteor Lake processors will power desktop computers next year, they will not power desktop PCs with sockets, the company clarified. Since the new CPUs are predominantly designed for laptops, they will come in ball grid array (BGA) packages and be used for compact desktops and all-in-one machines.  

"Meteor Lake is a power efficient architecture that will power innovative mobile and desktop designs, including desktop form factors such as All-in-One (AIO)," a statement by Intel published by ComputerBase reads. "We will have more product details to share in the future." 

In an interview last week, a high-ranking Intel executive said that Intel's Meteor Lake processors will come to desktops in 2024. While they will, they will not be coming in the company's LGA1851 form factor for gaming, workstations, and traditional desktop machines. As far as it is evident for now, Arrow Lake-S is set to target LGA1851 motherboards, but this won't happen until the second half of 2024.

Using notebook CPUs in AIO desktops and small form-factor PCs like Asus NUC is nothing new, and PC makers have done this for ages. What remains to be seen is what kind of performance levels those high-performance Meteor Lake CPUs for notebooks will demonstrate when compared to existing Raptor Lake processors for desktops and laptops.

Meanwhile, why Intel decided not to release Meteor Lake processors for desktops with sockets remains unclear. The CPU uses a multi-tile design with a compute tile produced on Intel 4 process technology, the company's first production node to use extreme ultraviolet lithography and a graphics tile made with TSMC's fabrication technology. Both production nodes promise to enable silicon with decent performance. 

Meanwhile, Intel's proven Intel 7 process technology (aka 10nm Enhanced SuperFin) can enable somewhat higher clocks due to its enhanced power delivery rail originally designed for datacenter grade CPUs, which is possibly why Intel decided to keep its Raptor Lake CPUs afloat for enthusiasts who want maximum frequencies and overclockability. 

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    Grrr... It's like a bunch of people that should be deeply aware of all the connotations of what they're saying don't care about accuracy. "Oh, 'desktop' is a term that includes all-in-ones with soldered chips." Yes, technically, but no one with an ounce of credibility would say that Meteor Lake is coming to 'desktops' if it's only for AIOs. But this does make a lot more sense than having Arrow Lake-S launching next year alongside Meteor Lake-S.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Grrr... It's like a bunch of people that should be deeply aware of all the connotations of what they're saying don't care about accuracy. "Oh, 'desktop' is a term that includes all-in-ones with soldered chips." Yes, technically, but no one with an ounce of credibility would say that Meteor Lake is coming to 'desktops' if it's only for AIOs. But this does make a lot more sense than having Arrow Lake-S launching next year alongside Meteor Lake-S.
    Depends on who's talking. For enthusiasts, sockets CPUs may be the supermajority and soldered CPUs may be some random niche thing they never think much about. For CPU makers and system integrators, soldered CPUs are probably the majority by volume and by revenue for client devices, and even for desktop client devices (which is not just AIOs, but the vast swathes of USFF devices and thin clients that pack out offices by the hundreds-per-floor).
    Reply
  • dehjomz
    I guess the PCWorld interviewer was supposed to specify "Client Desktop, Meteor Lake-S" I feel the executive should've known what he meant when he said desktop... but whatever, we will see what Arrow Lake offers next year.
    Reply
  • ohio_buckeye
    Of course thinking logically how long will it be before you can’t buy a cpu separately? In other words when will it be that when you buy a cpu you buy it already soldered to a board and you just add in the other parts?
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    edzieba said:
    Depends on who's talking.
    Also depends on whom they're talking to. He's an executive talking to PC World, which doesn't care about AIOs. Gordon might care about SFFs, though... :D
    Reply
  • baboma
    >What remains to be seen is what kind of performance levels those high-performance Meteor Lake CPUs for notebooks will demonstrate when compared to existing Raptor Lake processors for desktops and laptops.

    Nobody compares laptops' (or AIOs') performance to desktops. They're in completely different power categories. Laptops aren't compared to AIOs or USFFs for same reason.

    That said, Meteor Lake would be ideal for AIO/SFF, as the main challenge for those FFs isn't lack of CPU perf, but heat dissipation. Power efficiency matters, which is MTL's forte. Combined that with improved iGPU and AV1 encoding, MTL would make for an ideal HTPC, among other more general uses. If gaming is desired, it can be coupled with a discrete GPU just like the NUC Extreme.

    Consumers don't need extreme CPU power anymore, even hardcore gamers. That's why we can hang on to our oldie PCs for so long.

    Personally, an SFF/USFF would be much more attractive to me than yet another tower case PC. I'd prefer the portability and versatility of carrying it around and plugging into any screen/TV I want.

    Looking forward to what Asus & other vendors will come up with.
    Reply
  • Greg7579
    Hilarious! So now we learn openly that it was not for (real) desktops (with sockets)! LOL! OK, cool. 5 days of confusion.
    So, for us higher-end builders (gaming or productivity), we build now with Raptor Lake Refresh 14900K or wait "a year" ???? 😁 for the big generational change - Arrow Lake.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    ohio_buckeye said:
    Of course thinking logically how long will it be before you can’t buy a cpu separately? In other words when will it be that when you buy a cpu you buy it already soldered to a board and you just add in the other parts?
    Probably never, at least not outside of what is currently happening.
    People who want a computer like that just buy the whole computer. Motherboard manufacturers don't want to manage a different sku for every different CPU combo, and retail stores don't want to dedicate shelf space for 500 different motherboards.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Giroro said:
    Probably never, at least not outside of what is currently happening.
    People who want a computer like that just buy the whole computer. Motherboard manufacturers don't want to manage a different sku for every different CPU combo, and retail stores don't want to dedicate shelf space for 500 different motherboards.
    I wouldn't say never.
    The way things are going more and more things get integrated into the CPU, at some point there won't be enough left over for mobo makers to make any money on mobos so whoever makes the CPU will have to be producing SBCs, the raspberry pi and similar devices is where things are going.
    It's far far in the future but it will have to happen at some point.

    Intel already has a full PC on a GPU size card and the "mobo" is just a PCI slot

    This is the PC
    This is the mobo.


    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000095558/intel-nuc.html
    Reply
  • bit_user
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Grrr... It's like a bunch of people that should be deeply aware of all the connotations of what they're saying don't care about accuracy. "Oh, 'desktop' is a term that includes all-in-ones with soldered chips." Yes, technically, but no one with an ounce of credibility would say that Meteor Lake is coming to 'desktops' if it's only for AIOs. But this does make a lot more sense than having Arrow Lake-S launching next year alongside Meteor Lake-S.
    I partly blame the interviewer for not asking the obvious follow-up question: LGA1700 or LGA1851? That would've immediately clarified the matter.

    Anyway, by this definition, Tiger Lake was a freaking desktop CPU!
    🤣
    edzieba said:
    Depends on who's talking.
    It was Intel's Executive VP of Client Computing, talking to a PC World reporter. Definitely not someone who should be confused about what's being asked or why.
    Reply