LGA 4677: a new socket for Xeon CPUs from 2021

Intel seems to have finalized the design of the new socket LGA 4677 for Intel Xeon Scalable CPUs from 2021. The existence of LGA 4677 was revealed by TE Connectivity, a socket manufacturer. The news was reported by PC Watch Japanese journalist Kazuki Kasahara on Twitter.

This platform, whose launch is expected for 2021, will succeed the current LGA 3647 e socket-based platform will join the LGA 4189 socket expected for 2020 with the Cooper Lake (14 nm) and Ice Lake (10 nm) server processors.

The hundreds of extra contacts (pins) introduced with the new socket suggest changes not only in terms of CPU design and power, but also the possible support to PCI Express 5.0 and DDR5 memory. The greater number of pins would suggest an expansion of the input / output compartment and a greater number of memory channels.

The LGA 4677 socket should host based processors Sapphire Rapids architecture. It is not clear with which production process the CPUs will be made, as in 2021 there will be a overlap of processes, with the 10 nanometer “++” and the first generation at 7 nanometer (EUV).

Meanwhile, Intel will introduce new processors later this spring Cooper Lake, based on Skylake architecture. The news will concern the introduction of new extensions such as AVX-512_BF16 and a maximum of 56 cores per socket.