Intel Socket LGA1851 and ASUS Computex 2024 Booth

Intel Socket LGA1851 will serve as the foundation for the next two generations of Intel desktop processors, with the new Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" being the first to utilize it. These processors feature new "Lion Cove" P-cores, "Skymont" E-cores, updated PCIe Gen 5 I/O, and new Xe2 "Battlemage" integrated graphics, promising significant performance improvements. At the ASUS Computex 2024 booth, we got a glimpse of some of the company's high-end gaming PC motherboards designed for this platform, potentially based on the Intel Z890 chipset.

One of the motherboards we discovered is the ROG Maximus Z890 Hero, which includes ASUS BTF backside I/O connectivity. There will also be a standard variant with traditional front-facing I/O. The LGA1851 socket closely resembles the LGA1700 in appearance, with the same physical dimensions and compatibility with LGA1700 coolers. Intel increased the pin count by adjusting the pin pitch and reducing the size of the "courtyard." LGA1851 exclusively supports DDR5 and offers more PCIe Gen 5 connectivity compared to LGA1700, including CPU-attached Gen 5 NVMe slots that do not impact the x16 PEG slot. The ROG Maximus Hero motherboard seems to be feature-rich, catering to CPU overclocking and providing various connectivity options such as Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 7, USB4, 5 GbE, and next-generation SupremeFX onboard audio.