Intel wants 700-series chipset motherboards to support only DDR5 memory

midian182

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A hot potato: Buyers of Alder Lake CPUs have two options when it comes to buying a 600-series chipset motherboard: one that supports DDR4 or one that works with DDR5. But that choice could reportedly be taken away when the 700-series chipset boards launch alongside 13th-gen Raptor Lake desktop CPUs; Intel wants them to support only DDR5 memory.

According to TechPowerUp, Intel is already pushing to make 700-series chipsets DDR5-only when they arrive later this year. The company has reportedly been asking motherboard makers to avoid developing DDR4-compatible 700-series mobos, likely as a way to speed up adoption of the latest memory type.

The good news is that Raptor Lake CPUs themselves are expected to come with support for DDR4. As the processors should also be compatible with current 600-series chipsets, you could pair the two and have the choice of DDR4 or DDR5, depending on the board.

Dropping DDR4 from 700-series mobos isn’t set in stone; it’s just something Intel is pushing for. Additionally, it’s possible that if this scenario does play out, only the Z790 boards will be limited to DDR5, while cheaper B- and H-series chipsets will be available for both types of memory.

DDR5 memory modules have suffered supply problems since they launched, as well as high prices. But both those issues have improved slightly as of late and will hopefully be a lot better by the time Raptor Lake desktop CPUs get here.

In our extensive benchmarking of DDR4 and DDR5 when it comes to gaming performance, we found that the latter offered little to no gains on most titles. We reached a similar conclusion when looking at the best RAM for 12-gen Core CPUs, noting that there’s little point in investing in DDR5 right now unless you want the best of the best.

h/t: PC Gamer

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The intuitive thing to say is "DDR5 prices are still too damn high!" but I don't think that'll stop them: intel is adamant about their obsession of pleasing motherboard manufacturers above anything else with constant new chipsets and sockets and no backwards compatibility and so on.

Still I think this should signal current users to not sleep on those 12400 chips: it is very unlikely that their next iteration of the x400 i5 will be as compelling of an option if you're forced on to ddr5 this early.
 
Will they allow 600 series to accept Raptor Lake though? Or limit Raptor to 700 series?
 
Will they allow 600 series to accept Raptor Lake though? Or limit Raptor to 700 series?
I‘d bet Raptor Lake will work with 600 series boards, its successor is another question.
One gen upgrades are rarely worth it though, unless someone goes from e.g. a 12400 to a 13700K or 13900K. In that case, the question is if they have a high end board.
 
I'd bet on Intel back pedaling on backwards compatibility. Namely that Rocket Lake will require a new chipset and not work on 600 series boards.
 
Nothing new here from Intel who's changed CPU socket every 2nd generation of a CPU just to force folks to replace perfectly good systems with the latest/greatest from them so stop your whinning.

Now if they don't get the Alchemist GPU released in quantity by the end of the month, they're going to have wasted all that time/effort because we're already seeing card prices coming back down. This means the only ones who are going to buy them will be those who don't have any other choice and if they don't work well, there's going to be enough stink you think a skunk up and died in your room.
 
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