A Gigabyte Aorus Z890 motherboard PCB has leaked, shedding light on Intel’s CPU naming choice. Unsurprisingly, given all we’ve heard so far, next-gen processors will ditch the ‘i’ nomenclature while keeping the ‘Core’ branding.
According to this Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice motherboard PCB, Intel’s upcoming desktop processor series will be named Core Ultra. The lineup will comprise Core Ultra 5, 7, and 9 series CPUs, with 3 likely limited to the non-Ultra models if they ever release.
These CPUs are based on the Arrow Lake-S architecture, made using Intel’s 20A or TSMC’s 3nm nodes. They carry up to eight P-cores and 16 E-cores alongside two, three, or four Xe GPU cores. As usual, there will be F models with disabled iGPUs for those who care to save a buck. With this generation, Team Blue will offer Gen 5 PCIe for both the M.2 storage drives and graphics cards, similar to AMD’s X670E.
The board, shared by 9550pro on X, reveals the LGA 1851 socket pin layout and the 16+1+2 phase VRM power circuitry. It is also supposed to get the latest features, such as WiFi 7 and Thunderbolt 4. The board will support exclusively DDR5 RAM, unlike LGA 1700 which was compatible with both DDR5 and DDR4. Lastly, the 800 chipset series will once more consist of different chipsets, with Z890 covering the high-end.
The new LGA1851 socket has the same ILM (Integrated Lever Mechanism) design as LGA 1700, so it should retain cooler compatibility, which is great. According to the latest rumours, Z890 motherboards and compatible CPUs should launch this October. The first models are expected to be unlocked K models rated for 125W, with non-K variants coming later alongside mid and entry-range chipset boards.