With Intel’s Alder Lake processors expected to release later this year, Gigabyte has begun prepping for the yet-to-be-released LGA 1700 socket. One of Gigabyte’s liquid coolers has been listed as compatible with the new socket accompanying the 12th generation of processors. The cooler in question is Gigabyte’s Aorus Waterforce X, an all-in-one liquid cooler released in February 2021. Gigabyte included instructions for installing the mounting bracket on several different sockets in the cooler’s quick installation guide. These sockets include Intel’s LGA 115x, 1200, and the unreleased LGA 1700 that is coming with Alder Lake CPUs. The Aorus Waterforce X’s product page has also been updated to include the LGA 1700 under its list of compatible CPU sockets.
While specific models of relatively new coolers will be compatible with the LGA 1700, it is not yet clear if the majority of coolers will work given the slightly wider size of this socket. The distance between the mounting holes has been measured to be 78 by 78 millimeters for LGA 1700, as opposed to 75 by 75 millimeters for LGA 1200. Even the screws used when mounting the Aorus Waterforce X on the upcoming socket are marginally shorter (around 1 mm).
What’s next?
The Alder Lake processors will pair high-performance and high-efficiency cores on a single chip, somewhat akin to how ARM designs its big.LITTLE chips. Intel also claims that the next generation of CPUs will be twice as fast in multi-threaded workloads. However, such powerful and compact processors will certainly require proper cooling systems that are compatible with LGA 1700 sockets. Most coolers on the market right now do not mention whether compatibility will be an issue or not, but hopefully, we’ll hear more news closer to launch. After asking for more information, two cooler manufacturers have informed us that they anticipate their components to be Alder Lake compatible. If all else fails, updated brackets could also be a possibility to upgrade older coolers.
