Intel Alder Lake CPUs have been out for a few months now, but only those with some extra money to spare can take advantage of them. But with this news, probably not for long.
Entry-level motherboards for the new 12th gen Intel chips have apparently already been listed by Chinese retailers. According to WCCFTech, a few boards with the B660 and H610 chipsets have been spotted at Chinese retailer Taobao's website with a starting price of $85 USD.
These B660 and H610 boards appear to come from Gigabyte and Asrock, with other manufacturers nowhere in sight as of the moment. As for the pricing, there is confidence that prices can be lower once the motherboards are officially announced during CES 2022.
One of the motherboard models spotted was the H610M-HDV. As per the original WCCFTech report, the board features a 7+1 phase VRM, one 8-pin, PCIe x16, and M.2 connection each, and has support for only two DDR4 slots.
This is a markedly different configuration considering that high-end Alder Lake chips like the 12900K already feature DDR5 memory. The board is priced at $86 USD, as of this writing, with the pricing likely to change without prior notice.
Next up is the B660M-HDV from ASRock, which costs roughly $100 USD; the B660M-HDC (around $109 USD), and two models from Gigabyte: the B660M-DS3H and B660M-D2H, which are also DDR4.
The two Gigabyte Alder Lake motherboards are rumored to be priced at $118 USD.
This news follows the reveal of official specifications for other entry-level Alder Lake motherboards almost a month ago, as per PCGamer. The early reveals featured the H670 and H310 chipsets, which are primed for the arrival of lower-end 12th gen Intel chips early next year.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - JUNE 26: In this handout photo provided by Intel, Tom Kilroy, vice president of Intel?s Digital Enterprise Group, displays Intel's new Dual-Core Xeon Processor 5100 on June 26, 2006 at an event in San Francisco. Available for high-volume servers, workstation and communications markets, the 64-bit processor is based on the Intel Core Microarchitecture for increased performance with reduced energy consumption.
It has been shown that even the lower-end 12th gen boards, despite missing out on the likes of DDR5 and the revolutionary hybrid architecture, will still bring with them a host of modern features like PCIe 4.0 (for the B660 boards), PCIe 5.0, 20G USB 3 and SATA 3.0, according to Tom's Hardware.
Read Also: Intel Alder Lake i3 Chips Are FASTER Than AMD Ryzen 3 Series, According To Latest Leak
How Has Intel Alder Lake Fared So Far?
With Team Blue opting to launch their biggest guns early, they seem to be doing good against AMD Ryzen so far.
Various reviews have had nothing but praise for the top-end Core i9-12900K, with Tom's Hardware calling it the best gaming and productivity CPU currently on the market today (sorry, Ryzen 9 5950X).
Things have gone well enough for Intel that they've actually regained some of the market share they lost to AMD. Team Red still leads the race with an overall 68% market share courtesy of their Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 chips, but Team Blue has now far outpaced Comet Lake (28%) and Rocket Lake (34%) with 37%.
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JANUARY 07: Intel Vice President and General Manager Global Communications Group Laura Anderson exits the stage after speaking at an Intel press event for CES 2019 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on January 7, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 8-11 and features about 4,500 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to more than 180,000 attendees.
That said, however, 12th gen Intel chips are not without early problems of their own. Despite the massive performance gains brought by their hybrid big.LITTLE architecture, it's this same configuration that's causing a lot of games to not run well on the new hardware due to allegedly faulty DRMs.
But as of early December, these issues have already been fixed save for three games, as per PCGamer: "Assassin's Creed Valhalla," "Madden 22," and "Fernbus Simulator."
Related Article: Processor Specs Explained: What AMD, Intel Specs Mean, And How To Pick The Right One
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Written by RJ Pierce
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