Intel’s sockets are getting bigger and bigger, as shown by the new LGA-7529. Compared to the LGA-4677, the latter hosts 61% more pins for processors measuring 105×70.5 mm … CPUs bigger than 2.5″ SSDs , that’s saying something!!!
LGA-7529 : a socket out of the ordinary !
Currently, Intel’s biggest socket is the LGA-4677 which hosts the Sapphire Rapids and Emerals Rapids CPUs. However, thanks to SkyJuice60 and YuuKi-Ans, we can put our eyes on what the new Birch Stream platform will be. And clearly, it’s going to be simply huge!
Already, in terms of size, you should know that the CPUs will have a package measuring 105 x 70.5 mm. A gain in size that shows +70% compared to current models. Similarly, the socket is sized to offer +61% more pins.
But all this is not done by chance, far from it. Indeed, if the future Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest CPUs require such a big socket, it’s because the number of cores increases… They double in reality. If on the LGA-4677 we can only mount CPUs with a maximum of 64 cores, on the Birch Stream platform, the processors will have up to 128 cores… Even 334 in the case of Sierra Forest. Well, if the number is impressive, it will be E-Core.
Moreover, this new generation will be able to use up to 12 memory channels as well as PCIe 5.0. As for the speed of the RAM, for the moment nothing is confirmed, but we can expect support for DDR5 at 5600 MT/s at least. Finally, the platform features CXL Gen2 support.
In short, all this would be aimed at playing elbows with AMD and ARM on the server sector. Remember that currently the Epyc 9654 of AMD has a total of 96 cores and that this number is expected to grow over time!
