According to a story from late last year, Intel is delaying the release of its forthcoming “Meteor Lake” microarchitecture for the desktop platform in favor of a mobile platform debut in late 2023. “Arrow Lake,” which would cover both platforms, would then follow in 2024. In the meanwhile, a “Raptor Lake Refresh” architecture for desktops was anticipated from Intel in 2023. The “Raptor Lake Refresh” and “Meteor Lake” architectures are now revealed to be coming to desktops; we just don’t know when.

With a maximum CPU core count of merely 6 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores for “Meteor Lake,” it appears like Intel will brazenly compete against AMD. Only that “Meteor Lake” boosts the IPC of both P-cores and E-cores. The processor introduces the new “Crestmont” E-cores and up to six “Redwood Cove” P-cores, which have an increased IPC compared to the present “Raptor Cove” cores. The latter’s IPC boost will determine a lot of things. The I/O capabilities of “Meteor Lake” on the desktop platform are discussed in some interesting detail by Leaf hobby, a trustworthy source with Intel leaks on social media.

A PCI-Express host interface with 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and 12 PCIe Gen 4 lanes from the processor is reportedly included with “Meteor Lake-S” (the desktop version). According to this, there will be a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 PEG interface, a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface for the first CPU-attached NVMe SSD, a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 interface for a second CPU-attached NVMe SSD, and 8 PCI-Express 4.0 lanes heading toward the DMI chipset bus.

The best desktop motherboard chipset choice for “Meteor Lake-S” is the companion Z890 chipset, which features an all-Gen 4 PCIe interface. 24 PCIe Gen 4 downstream lanes are output by it. The Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11be) wireless networking standard, which has a theoretical top speed of more than 40 Gbps, could be standardized by Intel using this technology.

And then, there’s the issue of platform. The existing LGA1700 platform is unlikely to support “Meteor Lake-S,” and Intel is anticipated to introduce the new Socket LGA1851 for “Meteor Lake-S” and its successor “Arrow Lake.” Nonetheless, the new socket might continue to support LGA1700 coolers.