Intel’s Alder Lake processors are expected to hit shelves mid-November, or at least that’s the fresh word from the CPU grapevine.
To be precise, this comes from Wccftech which is citing its own sources as feeding back the info on the launch date that’s supposedly set for November 19.
That’s the actual on-sale date for the 12th-gen CPUs, with Intel supposedly revealing the spec, initial internal performance benchmarks, and pricing, a few weeks beforehand at the Intel ON event which takes place in San Francisco on October 27-28.
- Here are the best gaming PCs
- We’ve picked out all the best processors
- And the best cheap RAM prices and deals
That was the previously rumored date for the unveiling of Alder Lake chips, so it fits with past speculation and indeed what could be considered a heavy hint from Intel that was dropped back at the end of July.
Wccftech believes that a small number of both K (more performant unlocked models, which can be overclocked) and non-K (standard) chips will be pushed out initially, to be followed by ‘more mainstream variants’ in the weeks to follow. The processors will, naturally, be accompanied by the release of Z690 motherboards (it’d be pretty pointless to have the CPUs without any boards, because remember they have a new socket design, so they won’t fit with any existing hardware).
Analysis: Seems about right – and obviously there won’t be any Microsoft hook-up
Presumably the initial batch of Alder Lake CPUs to go on sale will include the flagship Core i9-12900K, plus the workhorse Core i7-12700K, and perhaps the midrange Core i5-12600K (though that might come later) – and of course non-K variants as mentioned.
The reveal being at Intel’s big event at the end of October makes sense, and lines up with previous rumors as mentioned, plus an on-sale date a few weeks down the line from that also seems like a good bet (or a sound guess to make, the more cynical might perhaps feel). In short, this all seems to add up, but exercise caution around anything floating down from the rumor mill as ever.
With Microsoft announcing that Windows 11 will be launched on October 5 a few days ago, the speculation that both the revamped operating system and Alder Lake chips might go live at the same time has obviously been put to rest. That made sense in some respects, given that Intel’s 12th-gen silicon is actually designed to run better with Windows 11 thanks to tweaks on the scheduler side (both software and hardware), but clearly it’s not going to happen now.
Regardless, with their entirely new design and mix of performance and efficiency cores, there’s a lot of excitement about Alder Lake processors, and how they might not just be great news for laptops and battery life, but also could turn out to be gaming powerhouses eventually.
- Check out the best PC components for your rig
