Intel axes 12th Gen Alder Lake and 4th Gen Xeon Sapphire Rapids — final orders for Intel's first hybrid CPUs end in just a few months

Intel is finally ready to let go of its 12th Generation Alder Lake and 4th Generation Xeon Sapphire Rapids Scalable processors, two product lines that have given us some of the best CPUs. Both processor families have now officially reached end-of-life status.

Despite launching just four years ago, Alder Lake remains far from obsolete. But newer Intel chips have graced the market, and the Arrow Lake Refresh is looming on the horizon. The chipmaker is likely streamlining its product lineup for the new offerings. Alder Lake's discontinuation carries symbolic weight, though, as it was Intel’s first consumer processor to feature a hybrid architecture; Alder Lake marked a pivotal shift in processor design for the chipmaker.

Intel discontinued several mobile Alder Lake processors last year, so the desktop variants were bound to follow. The end-of-life designation encompasses both boxed and tray versions across the entire Alder Lake lineup, spanning budget Celeron models and flagship Core i9 processors. From now on, support for these discontinued chips will transition from Intel Architecture to Intel Embedded Architecture.

That said, Alder Lake won’t vanish overnight. Retailers have until July 25, 2026, to place final orders, with Intel’s last shipment date set for January 22, 2027. This timeline gives the market over a year to stock up before these processors disappear entirely.

Sapphire Rapids Follows Alder Lake To The Afterlife

Sapphire Rapids, which launched one year after Alder Lake, becomes the second processor series to reach end-of-life status this year. The discontinuation is selective, though. Intel is retiring only the scalable server-focused variants, while workstation processors (Xeon W-2400, W-3400, W-2500, and W-3500) remain in active production for now.

As Alder Lake did for the consumer market, Sapphire Rapids pioneered Intel’s hybrid architecture in the data center. The processor’s journey was rocky, however, plagued by repeated delays. Originally unveiled in 2019 with a planned 2021 launch, Sapphire Rapids didn’t ship until 2023. By that time, AMD had already flooded the market with competitive alternatives. The delayed rollout severely undermined Sapphire Rapids' market impact.

Sapphire Rapids Scalable is also transitioning from Intel Architecture to Intel Embedded Architecture for support. According to the document, Intel stopped accepting new Sapphire Rapids Scalable orders on September 26, 2025, with final shipments scheduled for March 31, 2028. The announcement is more like a formal notification of a decision that has already been made rather than an advanced warning. Notably, Intel revised the discontinuation list to exclude the Xeon Gold 6414U, which should still be available.

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