Intel’s next family of desktop processors, the 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake-S” series, will attempt to fend off AMD’s Ryzen efforts with a clever design that combines high-performance (“big”) cores and high-efficiency (“little”) cores into a single product for improved efficiency. According to a specifications sheet shared by Igor Wallossek, one of these SKUs will be a 16-core, 24-thread CPU that features a base clock of 1.8 GHz, max turbo clock of 4.6 GHz (1 to 2 cores), and a TDP of 125 watts. This is just an engineering sample, however, so some of these specifications are subject to change.
According to the initial information, the new desktop CPUs will support up to dual-channel DDR5-4800 memory and the DDR4-enabled motherboards will support modules up to 3200-MHz. Supposedly, only the high-end Z690 motherboards will offer DDR5 support, while all cheaper variants will still rely on DDR4. This would then give Intel and also the motherboard manufacturers much more flexibility and security when it comes to the still unclear DDR5 mass production.
Source: Igor’s Lab