UPDATE 08:38 PST 28 June 2021- Twitter user @9550pro posted pictures of the new socket cover, currently on sale on China retailer Taobao.

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Earlier today, @momomo_us on Twitter leaked a photo of what appears to be the Intel LGA-17XX/LGA-18XX compatible socket cover. This breathes some speculation into compatibility between the upcoming LGA-1700 and the LGA-1800 sockets. The LGA-1700 series has mostly materialized in a large amount of leaked photos and information, but this the firs time we are seeing a picture of the LGA 1800 socket.

Is LGA18XX the successor to Intel's LGA-1700 socket series? And will this be used for Intel's 7nm Meteor Lake CPUs?

Igor Wallossek, our colleague over at igor'sLAB, introduced the LGA-1700/1800 socket in his extensive preview of Intel's Alder Lake-S with boxed cooler and cryo cooler including Peltier element.

Wallossek has this to say about the LGA-1800 sockets in his preview:

With the new LGA1700 and LGA1800 sockets, Intel also introduces a new mounting system and deliberately changes the hole patterns for the screw and backplate. With the increased distances of the holes by a few millimeters, one wants to understandably avoid that someone puts an old cooler on the new system. Because not only the structure width of the new CPUs becomes smaller, but also the height of the complete package.

– Igor Wallossek

Now keep in mind that Intel has multiple upcoming products and at least two different sockets (LGA 1700 and LGA 1800). Considering they have the same cooler mounting standard it is very much likely that they will feature the same socket cap. Intel's "Alder Lake", their 12th generation core series, and its successor titled "Raptor Lake", are probably going to utilize the LGA-1700 series socket while LGA 1800 could be used by Meteor Lake. AMD's "Raphael on the other hand will be using the LGA-1718 socket - which interestingly, only has 18 more pins than Intel's LGA 1700.

All that said, this is of course, educated speculation and we are not a 100% sure at this point what will utilize the LG-17XX/LG-18XX socket, but "WhyCry" at VideoCardz suggests that it could be for Intel's introductory 7nm architecture, codenamed "Meteor Lake", which comes soon after "Raptor Lake" (Alder Lake's successor). It is also speculated that the LGA-18XX socket could be manufactured for the Intel Xeon Workstation. Unfortunately, there is not enough information to know which product this corresponds to for certain, right now.

AMD Raphael and Intel Alder Lake LGA-1700 comparison. Image courtesy of @ExecuFix and Videocardz.

The following table shows the current Intel CPU generations. Note that Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, and Meteor Lake were thought to use the LGA-1700 sockets, except for Lunar Lake, which has yet to have any information leaked.

Intel Mainstream CPU Generations Comparison: