Intel Alder Lake release date potentially revealed by MSI listing

The CPU competition is potentially about to heat up again with the upcoming release of Intel’s 12th generation Alder Lake processors. We’ve known about the October 27 reveal event for some time now, but some recent sleuthing suggests that a release date for Intel Alder Lake is now known. According to VideoCardz, an MSI press release contained a reference to November 4, which the site was then able to confirm after reaching out to industry sources. WCCFTech’s Usman Pirzada then followed up with a statement that preorders will go live following the reveal event in October.

This most recent development contradicts prior rumors that Alder Lake would release on November 19, but the reveal date still lines up with the October 27 event rumored to be related to the new product lineup. It’s unclear if Intel decided to move the release date for Alder Lake forward or if the original rumor was inaccurate. Regardless, it’s good news for those interested in purchasing one of the new processors if the new information is true. It makes sense, though, because Intel would begin shipping preorders at the same time that MSI started shipping the updated mounting hardware, allowing for consumers to get each at relatively the same time.

All in on Alder Lake

Intel’s 12th generation of CPUs are expected to offer massive performance improvements over previous generations due to the new architecture designs. The Alder Lake architecture combines high performance and high efficiency cores via Thread Director to handle more multi-tasking while maintaining strong single-threaded performance for things like gaming. It’s no surprise that gamers are very interested in Intel’s next generation, as the performance improvements will be substantial if the new tech works as well as advertised. If the recently-leaked benchmarks are to be believed, Alder Lake will give Ryzen’s best a run for the money.

Alder Lake will also be the first generation of consumer desktop processors to use Intel’s 10nm manufacturing process. The node shrink allows Intel to improve performance while also improving power efficiency. Considering how power hungry Rocket Lake is, it’s good progress for Team Blue. We expect to learn more about performance, prices, and availability for Alder Lake via leaks as the reveal date gets closer. If you’d like to learn more about the architecture and its specs, you can check out our coverage from Intel’s Architecture Day 2021.