Noctua plans to support Intel’s Alder Lake LGA1700 socket through an “upgrade kit”

When asked about LGA 1700 compatibility, Noctua confirmed that their NH-U12A, which uses the company’s SecuFirm2 mounting system, will support Intel’s future desktop socket via an “upgrade kit”.

While Noctua did not comment more on the upgrade process “due to NDA”, this small tidbit confirms that Intel will be moving away from their LGA105x/115x mounting system, which has remained unchanged for most of the past decade. Noctua typically provides its users with free upgrade kits for the latest CPU sockets to their users, with recent examples being AM4 upgrade kits for AMD users. 

If Noctua’s NH-U12A can support LGA 1700, all Noctua SecuFirm2 COU coolers can, assuming that Noctua users own a compatible upgrade kit. These kits may be provided for free to Noctua users who have purchased LGA 1700 motherboards. 

Intel’s new LGA 1700 socket is larger than today’s LGA 1200 socket, allowing Intel to create larger processors for the mainstream desktop market. This makes a lot of sense given Alder Lake’s increased CPU core counts over today’s Rocket Lake offerings, with Alder Lake offering users up to sixteen cores.

We should expect to hear more from both Intel and Noctua later this year regarding LGA 1700 socket support and CPU cooler compatibility.