Alleged Intel Meteor Lake

Aug 13, 2023

An alleged Intel Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPU which is centered around the LGA 1851 socket has been pictured in the wild.

There have been various rumors about Intel canceling its Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPUs which were supposed to feature support on the new LGA 1851 socketed platform however every now and then we get to see new support for the chip being added to patches/kernels and now we have even have our first look at what's presumably an early Intel Meteor Lake-S sample.

In a picture posted by @wxnod, we get to see an unusual CPU that resembles the existing LGA 1700 CPUs such as the 12th Gen Alder Lake and 13th Gen Raptor Lake chips but upon closer inspection, the chip starts to look a lot different than those. First up is the IHS or the Integrated Heat Spreader which looks quite a bit larger than the ones featured on the existing chips.

Secondly, the gold pads on the side & the positioning of the caps are not seen on any existing CPU. And the biggest change is the two notches for the socket to hold the chip in place. For existing chips, there are four notches and even the two featured on the alleged Meteor Lake CPU are in a different position than the LGA 1700 socket.

In fact, a similar notch design was leaked by Igor's Lab in his blueprints of the LGA 1851 socket. At least this confirms that this is indeed an LGA 1851 socketed CPU and not one designed for the LGA 1700 socket. So the question remains, what is it? Well, the answer seems to come from HKEPC who are quite sure that this is an Intel Meteor Lake-S CPU with the 6+8 core configuration. Those will be 6 Redwood Cove P-Cores and 8 Crestmont E-Cores. We will see similar configurations in the first gen Core Ultra family which is scheduled to launch this fall.

Previously expected SKUs within the Meteor Lake-S lineup would have looked something like the following:

某魚的賣家正在發售疑似 Socket 1851 - QDF4 ES ....... 😇😇😇待查証 pic.twitter.com/THszYvrJdr

— HKEPC (@hkepcmedia) August 12, 2023

But the appearance of this alleged Intel Meteor Lake-S Desktop CPU should once again raise the question if these chips are still planned for a desktop release. So far, there's no official info & the only desktop release this year is expected to be the 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh.

😮 pic.twitter.com/ebwKOxqoOx

— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) August 12, 2023

The LGA 1851 socket is expected to launch next year and all major leakers and sources seem to be aligned with the fact that Arrow Lake-S will be the first family for the new platform. So this might just be an early ES chip that we are looking at. It does confirm that Intel had Meteor Lake ready for desktops in some shape and form but something didn't quite lead up to a proper launch on the platform.