Alder Lake Upgrade - How to Upgrade to Intel 12th CPUs - DIY in 5 Ep 161

Опубликовано 17 декабря 2021, 18:00

We look at Intel’s 12th generation Alder Lake CPUs. What are they? Why you might want to upgrade? If you choose to upgrade, what else might you have to upgrade in your PC to make it all work? According to Intel, its 12th-gen processors are thinner, cooler, and more energy-efficient, with redefined x86 architecture performance to elevate gaming, productivity, and creation. The hybrid architecture supports the latest and greatest pc tech innovations like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 and Intel UHD onboard graphics will now support 8K HDR and the ability to view 4 simultaneous 4k displays. Plus, Intel claims the hybrid architecture makes its 12th Gen CPUs the best processor available for gaming performance.

Intel is now touting both Performance or P-cores for powerful, single core tasks and Efficient or E-cores for background tasks and multi-tasking with Intel’s Thread Director deciding which task is using which core and therefore optimizing performance per watt. For overclocking these processors use advanced tuning support via Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (or XTU). Things like DDR5 RAM, PCIe Gen 5, Thunderbolt 4 and WIFI 6e are some of the even greater performance and efficiency gains you might receive from this upgrade. Having a new CPU that is ready for all that may just inspire you to take the plunge.

But upgrading to 12th Gen is not as simple as buying a newer, more expensive CPU and popping it in. Alder Lake chips are rectangle instead of square and have a new socket called LGA 1700, so you’ll need a new motherboard. Currently, the only chipset available with an LGA1700 socket is Z690. Companies like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock have Z690 options available, but not all of them are the same. Motherboards will have either DDR4-compatible slots or DDR5-compatible slots, not both, so you may need to pick up some DDR5 RAM to go with your new motherboard. DDR5 brings fast speeds up to 4800 MT/s (mega transfers per second). This allows for increased memory bandwidth speeds compared to previous generations that use DDR4 3200 MT/s per second memory. Once you’ve got the motherboard and RAM squared away, remember that the new processors are rectangular instead of square. So, your heatsink may require an upgrade too, or there could be a compatibility kit available. And finally, the PSU should not be forgotten either. Intel’s 12th Gen CPUs, like their predecessors, use a lot of power, and even more than this if you plan to overclock. You will need a power supply with at least two 8-pin CPU connectors and higher wattage depending what other components you want in your build.

Keep in mind that with any new tech, there’s bound to be some patience and learning curve involved as the rest of the tech world catches up with each other. For example, certain games currently don’t play nice with Alder Lake’s hybrid architecture and while a fix for this will probably come soon, there are some growing pains. Have you upgraded already? What was your upgrade process like? Tell us in the comments.