Intel’s next gen CPUs are coming to gaming PCs soon, and we’ve just been given our first glimpse of the socket that will be used by the chips and their supporting motherboards. The new lineup of Intel Arrow Lake CPUs are set to use the Intel LGA1851 socket, with the previous LGA1700 socket being retired for the next generation of CPUs after three solid years of service.
Unusually for Intel, the LGA1700 socket spanned three generations of the company’s best gaming CPUs, from 12th gen chips such as the Core i5 12400F to the brand new 14th gen chips launched at the end of last year, including the Core i9 14900K. However, there’s very little difference between Intel’s 14th gen CPUs and their 13th gen predecessors, and the company will be hoping that its new lineup of Intel Core Ultra CPUs will be able to give it a leg up.
The Intel Arrow Lake release date is expected to hit at the end of 2024, but it’s going to be up against some very stiff competition from the AMD Zen 5 release. What’s more, Intel will also have to persuade people to buy a whole new motherboard, as well as a new CPU, all thanks to that brand new socket.
Photos of an Intel LGA1851 socket have now appeared on German tech site ComputerBase, and also shared on X by tech writer Andreas Schilling, thanks to the reveal of a mini-ITX motherboard at Embedded World 2024, called the iBase MI1002, which is designed for Intel’s new Meteor Lake desktop CPUs. These chips aren’t for gaming, but the motherboard itself shows us what to expect from the LGA1851 socket that’s set to be used for Intel’s forthcoming Arrow Lake CPUs.
Handily, ComputerBase also got out its tape measure and confirmed that the LGA1851 socket has the same 45 x 37.5mm dimensions as the LGA1700 socket. This is potentially good news for CPU cooler compatibility, as it means your existing LGA1700 CPU cooler should at least physically be able to cover an Intel Arrow Lake CPU. However, we don’t yet have any details about the thermal requirements of Intel’s forthcoming CPUs, which could further complicate this situation.
The main differences between LGA1851 and LGA1700 firstly concern the placement of 151 extra pins around the center of the CPU socket. However, Intel has also changed the placement of the plastic notches around the edge of the socket, to ensure you can’t physically put an LGA1700 CPU into an LGA1851 motherboard. The LGA1700 socket has two notches on both the top and bottom edge, but LGA1851 only has one notch on each edge, and this time they’re positioned at the far edge of the socket.
We’re not expecting to see the first LGA1851 Intel Arrow Lake motherboards and CPUs launch until much later in 2024, but in the meantime, check out our recent review of the Core i5 14600K, where we take Intel’s latest mid-range gaming CPU for a spin.