Intel Readies Core 5 120F Socket LGA1700 Processor

Intel is breathing new life into the Socket LGA1700 platform by giving it its fourth processor model generation, under the Core 100-series branding. These chips are based on the “Bartlett Lake-S” microarchitecture, but are designed to capture value price points. The main target of these chips are the gaming PC crowd. “Bartlett Lake-S” is a derivative of “Raptor Lake” but with the E-core clusters physically absent, and the chips only having “Raptor Cove” P-cores. A marketing slide for a new entry-level chip came to light, the Core 5 120F.

The Intel Core 5 120F is probably being designed for a sub-$150 price-point. The company’s marketing material makes it abundantly clear that gamers that want maxed out 1080p AAA gaming experiences are the target audience of this chip. Core 5 120F comes with a 6-core/12-thread CPU, with six “Raptor Cove” P-cores, and no E-cores. The company didn’t specify L2 cache size, but these are likely 1.25 MB per core. The six cores share an 18 MB L3 cache. It’s highly likely that this particular silicon is physically similar to the “Alder Lake” H0 die, which also lacks any E-core clusters, physically only has six P-cores, and an 18 MB L3 cache. The Core 5 120F ticks at 2.50 GHz base frequency, with a 4.50 GHz maximum boost. It features a 2-channel DDR5 memory interface, supporting DDR5-4800 native memory speed, with support for up to 192 GB memory. The chip comes with 65 W processor base power.

Intel is also giving finishing touches to a large new monolithic silicon under the “Bartlett Lake-S” series, which physically has 12 “Raptor Cove” P-cores, each with 2 MB of L2 cache, no E-core clusters, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a classic multicore processor with 12-core/24-thread configuration purely with P-cores, and Intel will look to give it gaming performance that at least matches the Core i9-14900KS. The lure of 12 P-cores on a common CPU complex sharing an L3 cache, could attract gamers to the chip.