Intel Arrow Lake CPUs have more than 1,851 pads under the chip — MSI members painstakingly counted all pads by hand as a 'punishment' and discovered two extra rows

Arrow Lake
(Image credit: Intel)

Arduous manual counting by MSI Japan confirms that Intel's Arrow Lake processors have more than 1,851 pads beneath the CPU. As a quirky challenge from MSI, two of its team members attempted to count the total number of pads manually, at Intel's Arrow Lake launch event in Japan per ASCII.jp, which led to this fascinating discovery. We understand that these extra pads are there only for diagnostic purposes.

Intel's new LGA 1851 socket hosts a total of 1851 pins, with which 1851 pads beneath the CPU make contact. Notice we say pads and not pins since LGA-based CPUs don't have protruding pins underneath - as was the case with AMD's Ryzen CPUs before AM5.

Arrow Lake pad count

(Image credit: ASCII.jp)

Afterward, the OEMs showcased their latest and greatest motherboards, evaluated performance metrics, and assembled PCs live with Arrow Lake. Attendees could even bag some Intel original swag at the event by collecting specific keywords from Intel's official social media accounts.

Intel's Arrow Lake processors are now available to purchase but initial performance numbers are not that exciting. These CPUs struggle to achieve parity with the last generation Raptor Lake and Zen 4X3D CPUs in gaming. While we believe some of this can be alleviated with future microcodes and Windows Updates, Arrow Lake has some architectural limitations that are rumored to be addressed in Panther Lake and Nova Lake.

Hassam Nasir
Contributing Writer

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

  • slash3
    This relocation of the test pins was also pointed out by several reviewers prior to release:

    crZ2K-DBAhM:719
    1ETVjEpView: https://imgur.com/1ETVjEp
    Reply
  • DingusDog
    An LGA 1851 socket compatible chip has 1851 pads? You don't say.
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    DingusDog said:
    An LGA 1851 socket compatible chip has 1851 pads? You don't say.

    No, they didn't say that.
    Reply
  • Rob1C
    Counting many objects accurately is an old problem, that takes only a couple of minutes:

    https://bitesizebio.com/30184/quick-easy-automatic-cell-counting/ https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/d4/d70/tutorial_hough_circle.html
    Reply
  • Steve Nord_
    MSI 1952 when? Also will the compute class (Xeon, P, E, D cores) of disabled cores be distinct or merely unaccommadated? Anti-cheat, Taboola CSS, Discord? D cores.
    Reply