Intel Could Split 10th-Gen Comet Lake CPUs Into Two Different Sockets

In what seems to be an unprecedented move, even for Intel, Comet Lake might end up taking residence on not one, but two new sockets: Chip detective @momomo_us recently discovered a string in the latest version of CPU-Z that references the LGA1159 socket, which may complement the LGA1200 socket that we already know is coming for Comet Lake.

One of the very first leaked Comet Lake slides associated the upcoming 14nm chips with the LGA1200 socket, and recent pictures of the chips confirm the pin count. 

Now CPU-Z screenshots of Comet Lake processors show an LGA1159 socket, which is backed up by the discovery of the socket in CPU-Z's identification strings. Pictures of purported LGA1159 Comet Lake CPUs have also emerged. 

At this point, it's unclear if the new socket is real, but if it is, we have a few theories of what Intel could be up to.

LGA1159

LGA1159 (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

We suspect that Intel plans to split support for Comet Lake between different platforms, with the 125W K-series chips likely requiring the LGA1200 socket while the remaining 65W and 35W Comet Lake parts will get by with the LGA1159 socket. This separation sounds reasonable as the high-end Comet Lake chips have steeper power requirements and the extra pins in the LGA1200 socket can provide the necessary juice.

If our assumption is valid, Intel could potentially position the LGA1200 socket as a "value HEDT" (high-end desktop) platform. We hope the chipmaker doesn't roll with this strategy as it wouldn't fare well with enthusiasts, considering that rival AMD has already brought HEDT-like performance to mainstream motherboards with the Ryzen 9 3950X 16-core chip that continues to leverage the advantages of the company's long-lived AM4 socket.

A couple of days ago, Iranian news outlet Tnews shared two very interesting Comet Lake slides that help support our assumption. The first slide shows three divisions for Comet Lake: Enthusiast (125W), Mainstream (65W) and Low Power (35W). The K-series which, in all likelihood is comprised of the Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K and i5-10600K, can be configured to 95W at lower clock speeds. However, the real nugget lays in the second slide.

The second slide clearly shows that the Comet Lake chipsets are divided into two major categories. The W480, Q470, Z490 and H470 chipsets allegedly employ the CML PCH-H chipset, while the lower-end B460 and H410 chipsets are seemingly based of the CML PCH-V chipset. It's not confirmed, but we think the 'H' stands for High-Performance while the 'V' alludes to Value. 

It's plausible that W480, Q470, Z490 and H470 motherboards come with the LGA1200 socket, while the B460 and H410 motherboards utilize the LGA1159 socket. It's conceivable that the 65W and 35W Comet Lake chips would work fine on any Intel 400-series motherboard, but the high-end 125W parts are likely only compatible with the four high-performance models.

There is little doubt that there will be two sockets for Comet Lake, we're just not sure how Intel is going to sell that idea to consumers.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • MrN1ce9uy
    admin said:
    Are the LGA1200 and LGA1159 sockets two faces of the same coin?

    Intel Could Split 10th-Gen Comet Lake CPUs Into Two Different Sockets : Read more
    Sounds like they are moving backwards. Gone are the good 'ole days of standard-clocked consumer desktop K-series chips that have tons of overclock headroom. Now are the days of super expensive, near-impossible to cool, HEDT K-series with little-to-no overclock headroom on a different platform.

    I lost interest in Intel during the transition from Kaby Lake to Coffee Lake. I previously loved getting the fastest K-series CPU on a good Z-series motherboard. Now, Intel has doubled that cost. I'm no longer interested because my income has not doubled. I'm sure there are loads of other consumers just like me who would rather get all the fancy stuff from AMD's platform while also getting a CPU with more than enough cores/threads to last well into the future.

    Congratulations Intel, you are deteriorating the enthusiast market and merging it with the HEDT market.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    MrN1ce9uy said:
    Congratulations Intel, you are deteriorating the enthusiast market and merging it with the HEDT market.
    Kind of like AMD with its FM2+, AM4, and sTR4 eh?
    Reply
  • nofanneeded
    AMD won this round ... intel lowering theHEDT CPU prices to half proved that they were stealing us in the past with their overpriced per core products.

    AMD for the next 5 years .. I am Very angry at intel , and even if they made a faster product I will stay with AMD , because AMD is more honest in pricing.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    nofanneeded said:
    AMD won this round ... intel lowering theHEDT CPU prices to half proved that they were stealing us in the past with their overpriced per core products.

    AMD for the next 5 years .. I am Very angry at intel , and even if they made a faster product I will stay with AMD , because AMD is more honest in pricing.
    I don't think their profit margins were "super high", I think that at the current price they're just trying to pay the cost of keeping their fabs running until they get their die shrink to work. With all the corporate overhead, advertising, distribution and support costs, Intel should be seriously bleeding cash by now.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    Crashman said:
    Intel should be seriously bleeding cash by now.
    you mean intel who has been poaching nvidia and amd ppl among others <_<?

    and no...Intel 100% has been robbing the ppl. That is why you NEED competition. W/o it you get greedy ppl who justify crazy prices casue "our way or highway" mentality.
    Reply
  • MrN1ce9uy
    Crashman said:
    Kind of like AMD with its FM2+, AM4, and sTR4 eh?
    No, not at all really. FM2+ was AMD's mistake that they learned from and moved away from. It also seems to be the marketing strategy Intel chose to adopt. AM4 and sTR4 are all great and have more going for them than any of Intel's recent sockets.
    Reply
  • MrN1ce9uy
    nofanneeded said:
    AMD won this round ... intel lowering theHEDT CPU prices to half proved that they were stealing us in the past with their overpriced per core products.

    AMD for the next 5 years .. I am Very angry at intel , and even if they made a faster product I will stay with AMD , because AMD is more honest in pricing.
    This is my mindset exactly. The i7-7700K and then the i7-8700K the same year for the same price proved Intel was price-gouging old tech. That hit me personally since the first brand-new flagship CPU I ever purchased was the i7-7700K. In a way though, i can respect them for it because they allowed AMD to come up by offering such a terrible value even with the i9-9900K, which I could have afforded but I chose the Ryzen 7 instead. Now I can enjoy the nice new tech AMD has to offer without blowing a gasket with 250W power consumption and 90C temps.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    MrN1ce9uy said:
    This is my mindset exactly. The i7-7700K and then the i7-8700K the same year for the same price proved Intel was price-gouging old tech.
    How exactly is this different from AMD CPUs losing 50% + value within 6-12 months of release?
    Doesn't that also prove that AMD is heavily price gouging their tech?
    Either that or somehow the free market works on some kind of rules that rely on supply vs demand.
    Reply
  • MrN1ce9uy
    TerryLaze said:
    How exactly is this different from AMD CPUs losing 50% + value within 6-12 months of release?
    Doesn't that also prove that AMD is heavily price gouging their tech?
    Either that or somehow the free market works on some kind of rules that rely on supply vs demand.
    Yeah, I was going to follow that up by pointing out the free market, and that's what Intel is taking advantage of. Like I said, I can't blame them. They are just here to make money.

    The difference being AMD's Ryzen releases were 12-15 months apart, they offered the same number of cores (higher core count up front), AND when they did offere more cores than that (3800X and up) they allowed it all on on the same AM4 motherboards that people bought 1st-gen Ryzen on.

    Intel did exactly the opposite even though they didn't have to.
    Reply
  • wirefire
    This is actually bad for consumers but not a "bad move" for intel. First of all consider how many people actually do drop in CPU upgrades anymore. With the exception of the AMD platform that is a little hit and miss due to bios restrictions, this was not an "intel thing" so intel took it one step further and says buy the board and CPU for each other. I remember a while back intel wanted to soldier the CPU to the motherboards... that never happened.

    It could also be an OEM chip. They are going to ship those to PC manufacturers in the name of "power management". not likely but anything is possible with the intel screw up factory anymore.
    Reply