Intel's LGA1851 Platform Likely to Persist Through 2026

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Some additional details about Intel's LGA1851 platform are revealed.

Intel Meteor Lake
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel has started sampling of its codenamed Arrow Lake-S processors in LGA1851 form-factor and supporting motherboard among its customers. Arrow Lake CPUs could launch as early as the second half of 2024. A leak from @leaf_hobby, a prominent hardware leaker who tends to have access to confidential information alludes that the LGA1851 platform will continue its evolution till 2026. Take the news with a pinch of salt for now. 

Intel is seemingly distributing Arrow Lake-S ES1 and ES2 samples with six Lion Cove high-performance cores and eight Skymont energy-efficient cores, a configuration which resembles that of a mobile processor. Meanwhile, Core i9-grade Arrow Lake-S processors for desktops could feature eight high-performance cores and 16 energy-efficient cores, reports IT Home. Compute tiles of the upcoming processors are set to be made on Intel's 20A (2 nm-class).

We already know from unofficial information that Lion Cove high-performance cores of Intel's Arrow Lake-S processors are set to increase capacity of L2 cache to 3 MB. Meanwhile we have no idea about the destiny of the Adamantine L4 cache that was expected to show up in the Meteor Lake processor. There is a speculation that the forthcoming Arrow Lake-S processors might use Adamantine for GPU tile, but this is only a guess at this point since CPUs and GPUs work with caches differently and we do not know whether Adamantine can address both types of applications.

(Image credit: Intel)

Intel's Arrow Lake-S processors are set to use LGA1851 platform that is set to support successor of Arrow Lake-S (which is presumably called Panther Lake-S). Arrow Lake-S's I/O tile is set to increase the number of supported PCIe Gen5 lanes to 16+4 and also support four PCIe Gen4 lanes. Furthermore, Intel's Z890 platform is set to support 24 PCIe Gen5 lanes.  

Meanwhile, the LGA1851 platform is expected to lose DDR4 compatibility (which is not surprising as we are dealing with 2nm-based CPUs and DDR4's 1.2V may be too high for such parts). 

Intel's Arrow Lake CPUs for desktops, which once were rumored to show up in the first half of 2024, are now expected to launch in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, it is speculated that the LGA1851 platform will be used till 2026, which suggests support for at least two generations of CPUs. Then again, we are dealing with unofficial information here and plans tend to change.

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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.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • InvalidError
    2024-2026 looks like a typical two generations cycle for Intel, nothing unusual there.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    Or perhaps two generations plus a refresh considering recent events.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    I love how "Intel CPU sockets will persist across two generations, with one generation released per year, and both CPUs and chipsets both forward and backward compatible" continues to be news (or even 'rumours'), despite being the case for over a decade.
    Reply
  • Ryrynz
    Eximo said:
    Or perhaps two generations plus a refresh considering recent events.

    All depends on whether the node is up and running well. Refreshes are just a way of life at this point.
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    Intel forcing you to upgrade to DDR5 is A-OK,
    AMD forcing you to upgrade to DDR5 is sacrilegious.
    Hypocrisy in action.
    Reply
  • ilukey77
    LOL if only Intel pulled long socket life id seriously look at them for once but 2 gens !

    Ohh my bad 2 gens and a refresh to with the 12 13 and 14th MEH still not impressed !!
    Reply
  • Eximo
    The Historical Fidelity said:
    Intel forcing you to upgrade to DDR5 is A-OK,
    AMD forcing you to upgrade to DDR5 is sacrilegious.
    Hypocrisy in action.

    Intel has been quite friendly with DDR transitions. Offering CPUs with dual memory controllers for a whole socket twice now. I can't recall if they did DDR2/DDR3 boards, but I think they did. I was using HEDT back then which only supported DDR3. I transitioned from AM2 with DDR2.

    Skylake/Kabylake support DDR3/DDR4.
    Alder Lake/Raptor Lake support DDR4/DDR5.

    So minimum they offered more options than AMD in that regard.

    AMD making AM5 DDR5 only is logical, and I don't think there were too many complaints outside of the early motherboard pricing. They went second on DDR5 support and prices had stabilized. I feel bad for all the early DDR5 Intel adopters who paid top prices for mediocre memory. (I did the same when DDR3 was new on X58, memory cost me as much as the CPU)

    Have to make the cutover sometime.
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    Eximo said:
    Intel has been quite friendly with DDR transitions. Offering CPUs with dual memory controllers for a whole socket twice now. I can't recall if they did DDR2/DDR3 boards, but I think they did. I was using HEDT back then which only supported DDR3. I transitioned from AM2 with DDR2.

    Skylake/Kabylake support DDR3/DDR4.
    Alder Lake/Raptor Lake support DDR4/DDR5.

    So minimum they offered more options than AMD in that regard.

    AMD making AM5 DDR5 only is logical, and I don't think there were too many complaints outside of the early motherboard pricing. They went second on DDR5 support and prices had stabilized. I feel bad for all the early DDR5 Intel adopters who paid top prices for mediocre memory. (I did the same when DDR3 was new on X58, memory cost me as much as the CPU)

    Have to make the cutover sometime.
    My point exactly, AM5 was built to accommodate 4-5 generations of CPU so it makes no sense to spend additional R&D money making AM5 and ryzen 7000 compatible with DDR4 when it’ll be for one single generation. AM4 and the 5000 &X3D CPU’s are still widely available and cheap so AMD had no need to make Ryzen 7000 backwards compatible with DDR4.

    And Tom’s Hardware mentioned the “atrocity” of AM5/ryzen 7000 DDR5 only ever chance they could get. Like I said…hypocrisy
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    The Historical Fidelity said:
    My point exactly, AM5 was built to accommodate 4-5 generations of CPU so it makes no sense to spend additional R&D money making AM5 and ryzen 7000 compatible with DDR4 when it’ll be for one single generation. AM4 and the 5000 &X3D CPU’s are still widely available and cheap so AMD had no need to make Ryzen 7000 backwards compatible with DDR4.

    And Tom’s Hardware mentioned the “atrocity” of AM5/ryzen 7000 DDR5 only ever chance they could get. Like I said…hypocrisy
    How would it be for only one generation if CPUs are still widely available?!
    That means that people could still have the new CPUs with DDR4.
    If it makes sense is besides the point, people do things that make no sense all the time.
    Especially if a platform is meant to last a long time it is more important that it supports more things and not fewer.

    AMD didn't want to spend the money on supporting DDR4 because then they would have to spend the extra money on all of those 4-5 generations you are talking about and they just didn't want to do that.
    And it's not like I don't agree with them, it was the best way to do it for the company.
    Reply