News/Rumor - Intel Meteor Lake-S desktop CPUs to feature 20 PCIe Gen5 lanes, Z890 platform to support WiFi-7 and Windows 12

[rkd29980]

Intel Meteor Lake-S desktop CPUs to feature 20 PCIe Gen5 lanes, Z890 platform to support WiFi-7​

With rumors about the cancellation of the Meteor Lake-S desktop series, one must not forget that the platform specs must have been already shared with certain Intel partners. This does not confirm or debunk what will happen to the next-gen Core series, but rather what Intel was or still is planing for its new desktop client platform.

One of the hardware leakers, TCL (@leaf_hobby) who had previously revealed the full specs of Intel Xeon W3400/2400 series before launch, claims to know the details on Meteor Lake-S desktop platform.

The new CPU series would finally get 20 PCIe Gen5 lanes, with 16 lanes dedicated to the GPU and 4 for storage (the current platform is limited to 16 lanes). Furthermore, it is said that the Z890 chipset itself is to feature 4 additional Gen4 lanes. That said, Intel is clearly preparing a direct competitor to the AMD 600E platform.

MTL-S has additional 5.0 x4 from CPU(for M.2?)
5.0 x16
5.0 x4
4.0 x4
From CPU Direct
No AVX512

Z890 has additional 4.0 x4 from chipset, x24 Gen4 lanes total
Wi-Fi 7 debut

It says support windows 12 on OS list(?)

Now only 6P+8E and 6P+16E, 8P under dev?
That’s everything I know

— TLC (@leaf_hobby) February 25, 2023

The details on the next-gen desktop platform were leaked many months ago. The new chipsets are to be paired with LGA-1851 socket supposedly for Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake CPUs. The package size has not changed since Alder Lake, which means that new LGA1700 coolers should still be compatible with new “V1” socket.

Details that are yet missing is memory support. One can assume that the Z890 will support faster DDR5 memory than 5600 MT/s, but this was not mentioned yet. Furthermore, there is no mention of DDR4 memory support, which strongly suggests that Intel will discontinue supporting this technology with the new series.

Interestingly, the Z890 is said to support Wi-Fi 7 technology. This likely means Intel will develop its own wireless network chipset by the time this platform is market ready. Finally, the specs the leaker has also seen mention Windows 12 support.

Timing for the Z890 release is currently not available, but some sources claim it should come out in the second quarter next year. It would follow the refresh of Raptor Lake for desktops planned for Q3 this year.

 

[OKC Yeakey Trentadue]

Lot's of exciting news for MTL-S, especially the L4 news:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-14th-gen-meteor-lake-cpus-may-embrace-an-l4-cache

Broadwell, the last cpu to utilize L4, still holds up well in gaming, especially for being a 4/8 core cpu:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1619...ective-review-in-2020-is-edram-still-worth-it

It might be a while, though as Intel is set to release a Raptor Lake Refresh.

Three models seems reasonable for one architecture. Let's just hope we don't see another Skylake/Kaby Lake/ Coffee Lake/Comet Lake/Comet Lake- Refresh type scenario.