Intel's Arrow Lake-S "Core Ultra 200" Desktop CPUs could feature a brand new DDR5 memory controller as hinted by a renowned overclocker.
Overclocker Suggests Intel's Arrow Lake-S "Core Ultra 200" Desktop CPUs Launching In Q3 2024 With Updated DDR5 Memory Controller
The information comes from MSI's Dragon Shield "Wuhan" event where the company presented its latest products and innovations. During the event, MSI's in-house & renowned overclocker, TOPPC, took the stage to briefly talk about dual-channel memory controllers featured on existing Intel CPU families and teased the upcoming Arrow Lake-S "Core Ultra 200" Desktop platform. No mention of the CPU family or its memory controller was made but it is fairly easy to tell what Toppc was talking about.
The current Intel Alder Lake (12th Gen) and Raptor Lake (13th Gen / 14th Gen) CPUs feature both dual-channel DDR4 and DDR5 memory controllers. One should expect the same to be the case on Intel's next-gen desktop CPU family but it looks like Intel may be offering an updated IMC which is going to be great for memory tuners.
As of right now, DDR5 memory has only reached speeds of up to 9000 MT/s in overclockable DIMMs and although JEDEC is laying out the standard for future 8800 MT/s speeds for servers, the client speed can see a major uplift in memory support. There is still the question of whether all motherboards will be qualified to support such high speeds as we have seen with 600/700-series motherboards that only a few high-end variants and certain boards like the Z790 MPOWER can support high-speed OC memory.
With that said, overclockers have pushed DDR5 memory speeds to the limits using Intel's 14th Gen platform. The highest recorded speed so far is DDR5-11648.4 which is simply nuts. Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake-S "Core Ultra 200" Desktop CPUs are expected to feature native DDR5 support of up to 6400 MT/s which is around a 14% uptick over DDR5-5600 native speeds listed for 14th Gen CPUs. It is the baseline that suggests that Intel's Arrow Lake should be able to handle speeds north of 10K MT/s.
Following is what we know about Arrow Lake-S Desktop CPUs so far:
- New Core Ultra 200 CPU Branding (285K, 265K, 245K Unlocked SKUs)
- LGA 1851 Socket Longevity Planned Uptill 2026
- DDR5 Only Compatibility, No DDR4 Support
- Kicks off With 800-Series Motherboards
- Support For Up To DDR5-6400 Memory (Native JEDEC)
- Increased PCIe Gen 5.0 Lanes Through CPU & PCH
- Arrow Lake-S First Desktop Family Supported (DIY)
- Arrow Lake-S CPUs feature 3 MB L2 Cache Per P-Core
- Arrow Lake-S CPUs feature Alchemist iGPUs
- Arrow Lake-S CPUs feature 8+16, 6+8 CPU SKUs
- Arrow Lake-S 8+16 (24 Cores)
- Arrow Lake-S 6+8 (14 Cores)
- No Hyper-Threading Support(?)
- Launching In 2H 2024
Do keep in mind that Intel's Arrow Lake chips will feature Alchemist "Arc" Xe-LPG iGPUs onboard so faster memory can definitely help the graphics chip to fulfill its bandwidth needs. One should also expect Arrow Lake-S "Core Utlra 200" CPUs to be the first family to support just DDR5 memory like AMD's AM5 platform. The new LGA 1851 socketed motherboards should come out in the form of 800-series from manufacturers and the overclocker also hints at the launch in Q3 2024 so a July or August timeframe should be correct since Intel is expected to unveil the chips in June 2024 during Computex.
News Source: Chiphell Forums
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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