We received an anonymous tip with Intel’s 500-series chipset logos for the upcoming Rocket Lake-S motherboard.
Intel reveals new chipset logos
Intel is set to launch its 500-series motherboard chipsets at CES, which starts in just 11 days from today. For certain, board partners’ marketing departments will have a tough time advertising their new motherboards with PCI Express 4.0 hardware support knowing that Intel’s first Gen4-capable Rocket Lake-S series will not be available till at least March. History repeats itself, the same problem arose last year when select board makers decided to officially claim PCIe Gen4 hardware support, knowing that no CPUs at the time could take full advantage of the new interface standard.
The details on the new 500-series chipsets are not yet known. It appears that the first wave will feature Z590, B560, and H510 chipsets. The new motherboards are expected to feature DDR4-3200 memory support on Z590 and B560 chipsets and XMP profile support. Z590 will also have CPU overclocking support, which has not yet been confirmed on H570 and B560.
The new Rocket Lake-S CPUs will have 4 additional PCIe lanes, which can be used for direct NVMe PCIe 4.0 storage. More importantly, Z590 and B560 chipsets will both support PCIe 4.0 x16 for discrete GPU, finally achieving what AMD did more than 2 years ago.
500-series motherboards will have a short life, considering that Intel already confirmed its successor Alder Lake which features a different LGA1700 socket coming in 2021. This is contrary to AMD’s decision who decided not to release 600-series chipsets for its Zen3 CPUs. Both companies are expected to transition to PCIe 5.0/DDR5 platforms with new CPUs and their AM5/LGA1700 sockets in a year or so. This is certainly not a good time to buy a new motherboard if longevity is the main concern.
