Chip stock Intel (INTC) has faced a lot of growing competition in the last couple of years, including in areas it formerly dominated, as well as areas it could have had much more footing in, but simply did not pursue with much fervor. But Intel is hardly out of the hunt yet, and new leaks suggest some major moves that may be ready to come. Despite these advances, Intel still faced a downward tick, slipping fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
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A new report featured what was said to be a picture of a new socket that would soon host the new Diamond Rapids line of server central processing units (CPUs). This socket had one major unexpected wrinkle to it: it had over 10,000 pins to it. That included debug pins and similar matters, but that five-figure number by itself represented a serious potential issue: it would be the largest land grid array (LGA) processor released yet.
This, of course, assumes that future processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) do not feature similar designs. But for now, Intel looks like it may be the leader in sheer pin size. And by a substantial margin, as well; the LGA7529, formerly Intel’s largest, boasted just 7,529 contacts. With pin count now up by a third, this would mean that the new Diamond Rapids line is likely to have more memory channels, more input / output capability, and even more core counts overall for faster processors. This potentially represents a major upheaval in the processor space, if it all turns out to be like the leaks suggest.
Keeping It All Cool
A system like that is likely to generate a lot of heat, but Intel may have an idea there too: the Oak Stream liquid cooling cold plate. Reports suggested that an Oak Stream would be needed to go along with the Diamond Rapids processor, which provides a bit more credence to the whole concept.
Anyway, the Oak Rapids cold plate is geared toward data center and other “high performance” applications. These are also “notably larger” than the equivalent cooler systems from AMD, suggesting that Intel is indeed making the comeback for which so many hoped.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buy, 26 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 31.8% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.29 per share implies 4.11% upside potential.
