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Confirms what we already knew.

Intel has purportedly demonstrated a slide revealing the detailed capabilities of its next-generation Raptor Lake desktop platform. Some of the details about Intel's 13th Generation Core processors and supporting platforms have been known for some time, and this slide just confirms a few of the many details we've already published in our Raptor Lake all-we-know article. 

Intel held its 1H 22 NAS workshop in Shenzhen, China, where it revealed details of its NAS-related plan. The Raptor Lake-S Platform Overview slide made it to Baidu (opens in new tab), discovered by Twitter user HXL (opens in new tab).

As we've already covered, Intel's 13th Generation Core 'Raptor Lake-S' processor will increase core count compared to Alder Lake-S by increasing the number of energy-efficient Gracemont cores from eight to 16. By contrast, the number of high-performance Raptor Cove cores will remain at up to eight units.

Meanwhile, Intel's next-generation CPUs will gain support for DDR5-5600 memory, which will boost the processors' single-thread performance. However, for those who do not want to invest in DDR5, Intel will retain support for DDR4-3200 memory, which is unsurprising as Raptor Lake-S will be compatible with Intel's existing LGA1700 platforms.

Regarding input/output capabilities, Raptor Lake processors will feature 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes, four PCIe 4.0 lanes, and eight DMI 4.0 links to connect to the chipset. The 16 PCIe Gen5 lanes support bifurcation to get a PCIe Gen5 x8 interconnection to a GPU and two PCIe Gen5 x4 interconnections to SSDs. As a result, one Raptor Lake-S CPU can handle up to three SSDs directly attached to it. It is unclear why Intel decided to keep PCIe Gen4 x4 dedicated interconnection for M.2 SSDs. Still, it may have something to do with the necessity to maintain compatibility with existing LGA1700 platforms that are validated only for PCIe Gen4 x4.

When it comes to Intel's 700-series chipsets for Raptor Lake-S processors, it will continue to support PCIe 3.0/4.0 interconnections, 2.5GbE (external MAC is required), Wi-Fi 6E CNV, SATA, and USB 3.0 Gen 1/Gen 2/Gen 2x2 interfaces. Meanwhile, to support Thunderbolt 4, Intel recommends that PC makers equip their machines with its Maple Ridge external controller (USB4-compliant).

Intel's 12th Generation Core 'Alder Lake-S' platform brought many new technologies and features (hybrid CPU design, DDR5, PCIe Gen5) to the desktop market. The Raptor Lake-S platform can be considered a relatively minor upgrade, though it does boost the number of PCIe 4.0 lanes from the chipset to 20.

We've already shared all of these details, and far more, in our Raptor Lake roundup. These chips will compete with AMD's Ryzen 7000 chips when they arrive later this year.
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