Alleged information about Intel’s next-generation Z890 chipset has leaked, revealing minor I/O changes. The most recent information comes from leaf hobby (TLC), who tweeted the Intel Z890 PCH and Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPUs. According to the specifications, the Intel Z890 PCH will have four additional PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes dedicated to an additional M.2 slot, bringing the total number of PCIe lanes to 24, or four more than the existing Z790 PCH.
One interesting note is that the Z890 motherboard will be the first to feature Intel’s WiFi 7 technology. Existing Z790 motherboards support WiFi 6E, which could be one of the major selling points. Support for Microsoft’s Windows 12 operating system is also listed, but this could be a placeholder for the time being. The more pressing question is whether the Z890 PCH is designed for the next-generation LGA 1851 socket or the current LGA 1700/1800 socket.
Intel is preparing its Raptor Lake-Refresh lineup for release later this year, and Intel is known to release a refreshed platform every year.
They already have two platforms that use the LGA 1700 / 1800 socket, the 600 and 700 series, so putting the 800 series on the same socket makes little sense. As a result, the Z890 chipset is likely to debut alongside the next-generation CPU lineup for the LGA 1851 socket. The Intel LGA 1851 socket has already been leaked, and it has a similar design to the LGA 1700/1800 socket with minor differences aside from the extra contact pins.
The Intel Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPUs are also said to have four additional PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes, which could be dedicated to a Gen 5 SSD. Currently, Z790 motherboards with PCIe 5 SSD support must share lanes with the PCIe x16 slot. The CPU lanes are divided into x16 (Gen 5) for dGPU, x4 (Gen 5) for M.2, and x4 (Gen 4) for M.2. The Intel Meteor Lake-S CPUs, like its Raptor Lake predecessor, are said to lack AVX-512 support.
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