Intel "Alder Lake" Memory Controller Could Carry Forward Gear Ratios
Intel's 12th generation Core "Alder Lake" desktop processors could take the concept of memory frequency "gear ratios" forward, according to patch notes from the most recent update to HWInfo64, as reported by Tom's Hardware. Introduced with 11th Gen Rocket Lake, a "gear" ratio is the ratio of the memory clock speed in relation to the memory controller speed. In Gear 1 (or 1:1), the two operate at the same frequency. In Gear 2, the ratio is 1:2 or the memory controller operates at half the frequency of the memory, enabling higher memory overclocking headroom. With "Alder Lake," the company could carry forward this concept for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory types that the controller supports. At this point we don't know if there are just two ratios (Gear 1 and 2), or whether the company could add some more granularity.