Intel ditches DDR4 and Hyper-Threading in new next-gen CPU leak

A bunch of Intel 15^th-gen specs have simply leaked on-line, not solely confirming that Intel is dropping DDR4 help from its forthcoming CPUs, however probably additionally ditching Hyper-Threading. Particulars of a pre-Alpha desktop Intel Arrow Lake CPU have been revealed, stating that DDR4 help is now being discontinued, whereas additionally exhibiting a CPU kitted with eight P-Cores that may solely deal with eight threads.

All this marks an enormous change from the Intel CPUs discovered on our best gaming CPU information, all of which help each DDR4 and DDR5 reminiscence, and likewise help Hyper-Threading (HT). This intelligent tech has been round for a very long time now, and it permits a CPU core to separate the assets on its cores to deal with two threads directly, which means Home windows sees every core as successfully two CPUs.

That doesn’t imply an eight-core CPU with Hyper-Threading is as quick as a 16-core CPU with out it, however HT (and SMT on AMD CPUs) give a CPU a lift in closely multi-threaded software program.

The leaked doc explicitly states that there’s “no DDR4 help” on the Intel Arrow Lake platform, though 6400MHz DDR5 reminiscence is now formally supported, an enormous bump from the 5600MHz high frequency that’s formally supported by 14^th-gen CPUs, such because the Intel Core i5-14600K. That’s not an enormous deal, although, seeing as most motherboards with Z-series and B-series chipsets allow you to run XMP reminiscence profiles with a lot quicker clock speeds anyway.

The leak got here within the type of a doc posted on X (previously generally known as Twitter) by YuuKi_AnS, which has since been deleted, however has been preserved by the wccftech people. Different goodies within the CPU specs embody USB 4 help, in addition to 20 PCIe 5 lanes – 16 for a GPU and 4 for an M.2 SSD, plus an additional 4 PCIe 4 lanes. In the meantime, the precise CPU detailed within the doc seems like a 24-core CPU in the identical league as the present Core i9-14900K. It’s described as having eight IA cores, with IA standing for Intel Structure, which we assume are the P-Cores, together with 16 Atom cores working at 3.5GHz, which make up the E-Cores.

Apparently, although, the eight IA cores are solely listed as having eight threads, which means that there’s no Hyper-Threading help. Comparatively, the P-Cores on the most recent 14^th-gen Intel CPUs all help Hyper-Threading, so eight P-Cores can execute 16 threads. The doc additionally notes that it’s important to disable the P-Cores within the BIOS on this pre-Alpha pattern, because it causes points with the motherboard, similar to detecting M.2 SSDs. It provides that “this problem shall be fastened in a future CPU stepping.”

This doesn’t essentially imply that Intel 15^th-gen processors shall be slower at multi-threading, although. In 2023, Intel filed a patent outlining the “strategies and equipment to schedule parallel directions utilizing hybrid cores”, and it could possibly be that such a sophisticated thread scheduler system mainly makes Hyper-Threading in its present type redundant.

Does this matter for players? Probably not. A lot of the newest video games will wrestle to max out an eight-core CPU, not to mention a 24-core processor with Hyper-Threading. Nevertheless, the apparently confirmed lack of DDR4 help is the final nail within the coffin for this ageing reminiscence tech – if you wish to improve sooner or later, you’re going to want to leap into the DDR5 pool. For those who’re already seeking to purchase some new reminiscence, examine our our best gaming RAM information.