Intel 600 Series Chipsets Will Be Limited to PCIe 4.0 x4

It was discovered via the PCI-SIG certification a couple of days back that Intel’s next-gen 600 series chipsets for consumer processors won’t be supporting PCIe 5.0 after all. Instead, the PCH (Platform Controller Hub) or chipset will only be limited to four PCIe 4.0 lanes. This doesn’t mean that Alder Lake-S will lack PCIe 5.0 support. We’re likely going to see the newer interface supported via the processor, similar to how the B550 boards support PCIe 4.0 on Zen 2 and Zen 3 parts.

Alder Lake is supposed to be the first consumer platform to support PCIe 5.0 and DDR5, ahead of AMD’s Zen 4-based Ryzen 6000/7000 lineup. (Fluticasone) However, to buy into the new hybrid core architecture you not only need a new motherboard with the LGA1700 socket, but also a new power supply and a new cooler. The lack of PCIe 5.0 support from the Alder Lake-S PCH indicates that we may likely see the lower-end models completely drop support for the new interface, as well as the mobile SoCs. However, this isn’t really a cause for concern as PCIe 4.0 is more than enough for the more intense I/O workloads.