LARGER PACKAGE AND A NEW SOCKET

As our lead photo shows, the Intel 12th Gen Core processors are quite a bit larger than many of Intel's past processors. With up to 16 physical processing cores (8 P-cores + 8 E-cores) in a new hybrid architecture, massive amounts of cache, new PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 controllers and speedier interconnect fabric, it's no surprise that the 12th Gen Core processor requires a new LGA 1700 socket to pack the large die and the necessary pinouts to supports its interconnect requirements with the motherboard.

1, 2, 3, ... yes, this is an LGA 1700 package of our Core i9-12900K processor.