Intel's mysterious new LGA 4710 Socket pictured

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Intel may be developing a new socket for the server sector.

Intel
(Image credit: @Yuuki_AnS/Twitter)

An image of an unknown socket presumably designed for Intel's processors has been published by @Yuuki_Ans, a renowned hardware leaker. The socket in question is called LGA4710 and might be destined for special-use processors from Intel or custom 'off roadmap' system-on-chip designs. 

The published images depict a socket entitled 'LGA4710-2' and 'LGA-4677 LGA-4710.' Lotes, a major maker of CPU sockets and other connectors, manufactured the socket.

Modern Intel 4th Generation Xeon Scalable 'Sapphire Rapids' processors use the LGA4677 package, and 5th Generation Xeon Scalable 'Emerald Rapids' CPUs will keep using this form factor. Meanwhile, 6th Generation Xeon Scalable 'Granite Rapids' processors will use the LGA7529 socket, just like their 144-core Sierra Forest counterparts aimed at cloud data centers. As a result, it is unclear what the LGA4710 package is for. 

Given that the LGA4710 socket is physically the same as LGA4677, perhaps the main question is why Intel would design a new socket for a new processor form factor aimed at the same applications as existing processors. While we are not exactly in the business of guesses, we can provide a few possibilities for Intel's LGA4710 package.  

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Intel
(Image credit: @Yuuki_AnS/Twitter)

Typically, new sockets are made to enable new processors with different power and connectivity requirements. Therefore, LGA4710 can just enable higher thermal design power, or the support of different connectivity features, such as a newer version of PCIe or CXL. Since the new processor form factor is physically the same as Intel's LGA4677 and it is possible to install an LGA4677 processor into a 4710-pin socket and vice versa, power requirements of LGA4710 processors should not be too different because otherwise, chips might end up damaged. 

An attentive reader has probably noticed by now that we purportedly avoided calling products in an LGA4710 form factor a CPU, which is for a reason: Intel sells a boatload of data center and workstation products, so it may use the LGA4710 form factor for a next-generation workstation or special-purpose server system-on-chips, CPUs, FPGAs, or even GPUs. For example, the company is working with Ericsson on custom chips for RAN applications. In addition, Intel also makes custom processors for Meta's Facebook, which runs vast data centers that cost about a billion dollars each.  

For now, it is hard to say what LGA4710 is. The number of possibilities is vast, but we assume that the answer should be quite simple.

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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.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bit_user
    This isn't really so mysterious as the article makes it out. There have already been leaks of a new mid-tier platform, for lower-end Granite Rapids & Sierra Forest CPUs, for quite a while. I guess nobody bothered to use google, before writing this.
    https://wccftech.com/intel-granite-rapids-sp-xeon-cpus-for-lga-4710-socket-pictured-in-two-distinct-flavors/
    If you think about it, it makes sense that not everyone would want a honking-big 12-channel LGA 7529 socket, especially for lower-spec CPU models. So, like AMD's Siena EPYC 8004 series, which launched on their new SP6 socket (LGA 4844), Intel is adding a smaller socket to their lineup.
    https://www.anandtech.com/show/20057/amd-releases-epyc-8004-siena-cpus-zen4c-for-edge
    I just hope they use that smaller socket for Xeon W models, since workstation pricing has gotten so nuts. Not that it really matters for me, as I'm permanently priced out of that segment.

    Given that the LGA4710 socket is physically the same as LGA4677, perhaps the main question is why Intel would design a new socket for a new processor form factor aimed at the same applications as existing processors.
    Obviously because speeds & feed change, over the years. Sapphire Rapids was originally supposed to be launched in like 2021, by the time that platform was finalized. It's hardly surprising that its socket won't meet some requirements of the CPUs being introduced in 2024.

    Not only that, but Intel has a long-standing precedent of using the same socket for 2 generations. The big exception to this was Ice Lake, which (probably due to a generation of Xeons being cancelled) had its own socket.

    we purportedly avoided calling products in an LGA4710 form factor a CPU, which is for a reason: Intel sells a boatload of data center and workstation products, so it may use the LGA4710 form factor for a next-generation workstation or special-purpose server system-on-chips, CPUs, FPGAs, or even GPUs.
    No, you "purposely" avoided calling it that. And the author should have enough sense to know this isn't for GPUs, which need far more memory bandwidth to use external DRAM and probably have too few other I/Os to justify so many pins. Putting modern FPGAs in such a socket would also be unprecedented, I think.

    IMO, this particular author should really know better than to crawl out onto this speculative branch.
    Reply
  • tek-check
    Admin said:
    Intel is possibly readying a new LGA4710 socket for an unknown server platform.
    Intel's mysterious new LGA 4710 Socket pictured : Read more
    4170 - Granite Rapids SP - Beechnut City, "little Granite" - 8 channels
    7529 - Granite Rapids AP - Avenue City, "big Granite" - 12 channels
    Reply
  • DotNetMaster777
    Granite Rapid ? ?
    Reply