Intel Z690 chipset for Alder Lake CPUs detailed, supports DDR4/DDR5 memory and Gear4 mode

Intel Alder Lake CPU pictured again, Z690 chipset detailed

PC Inquisitor has a new photo of the Alder Lake CPU alongside a diagram for the Z690 chipset. 

Here’s another photo of the Alder Lake CPU from the bottom. The LGA1700 socket will require more pads to be used, and forced Intel to come up with a rectangular design for Alder Lake CPUs. This is in fact, the first photo of the Alder Lake bottom since last year when we leaked the first photo:

Intel Alder Lake engineering sample, Source: PC Inquisitor, VideoCardz

Furthermore, PCI has more information on the next-gen GPUs. The following Z690 flagship chipset diagram for the new motherboards is actually the first leaked document to list the 12th Gen Core CPUs.

The Z690 chipset diagram confirms that 1×16 or 2×8 lanes of PCIe Gen5 will be attached directly to the CPU, whereas the chipset will support up to 12x PCIe Gen4 lanes and up to 16x PCIe Gen3 lanes. That’s a major upgrade over Rocket Lake, which only introduced PCIe Gen4 support after a long year of being exclusive to AMD Ryzen CPUs. Such PCI Express configuration means that the CPU will support up to four PCIe Gen4 NVMe drives without using 16 PCIe Gen5 lanes which may be used by discrete GPU exclusively.

The 12th Gen Core CPU will either support DDR5 or DDR4 memory in the dual-channel configuration. This diagram actually reaffirms the slide from Intel Architecture Day which mentioned DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200 support. The site claims that the DDR5 memory will support Gear 2 (by default) or Gear 4 settings, which means that the controller will be working at 1/2 or 1/4 of the data rate to ensure compatibility and memory overclocking support.

The DMI (Direct Media Interface) will once again be upgraded. The current 11th Gen Core series already introduced DMI 3.0 with 8 lanes, whereas the Z690 chipset will be upgraded to PCI Gen4 x8 speed.

Intel Z690 chipset diagram, Source: PC Inquisitor

Intel 12th Gen Core series and first Z690 motherboards are now rumored to launch on November 17th.

Source: Performance Computing Inquisitor