Intel assured us last year that the company would keep LGA socket alive for a "foreseeable future" after rumors of them transitioning to BGA in the desktop market surfaced. Today, a leak from VR-Zone confirms that Intel is indeed working on not one but three Intel Haswell processors that would ship in BGA packages on the desktop platform and would include the Core i7-4770R leading the pack.

Intel Haswell R-series BGA CPUs Specs

The R naming scheme suggests the BGA packaged desktop processors which would presumably either become part of Intel's upcoming NUC systems which are confirmed to feature Intel Haswell processor or a complete new desktop platform which is yet to be seen. The Intel Haswell LGA 1150 lineup remains as it is but looking at BGA CPUs this early is quiet intriguing. Currently, Intel ships their desktop CPUs in K (Unlocked), T (Low TDP) and S (Low Power) variants.

The new Intel Haswell R-Series lineup would include three BGA packaged CPUs which would include the following:

Model Cores /

Threads CPU clock TurboBoost L3 cache Graphics TDP Core i7-4770R 4/8 3.2 GHz 3.9 GHz 6 MB HD 5200 GT3 (1300MHz) 65W Core i7-4670R 4/4 3.0 GHz 3.7 GHz 4 MB HD 5200 GT3 (1300 MHz) 65W Core i5-4570R 4/4 2.7 GHz 3.2 GHz 4 MB HD 5200 GT3 (1150 MHz) 65W

As you can note, the naming scheme Intel chose for their Haswell BGA chips is the same as their desktop lineup however the specifications are quiet slimmed down. The fastest Core i7-4770R is neither unlocked just like the rest of the models, has 4 cores and eight threads with 6 MB L3 Cache and a TDP of 65W. Similarly, the 4 core/ 4 thread Core i7-4670R has a base clock of 3.0 GHz that Turbos upto 3.7 GHz and has 4 MB L3 Cache while the Core i5 4570R has the same specs except a much lower frequency of 2.7 GHz base and 3.2 GHz boost.

All these Intel Haswell R-Series BGA chip comes with a 65W TDP compared to 87W of their desktop LGA variants and the most important thing to note is that they use a GT3 HD 5200 graphics chip which would boost their visual performance alot. Each chip has the GPU core frequency configured at 1300 MHz except the 4570R that has it clocked at 1150 MHz but still is tons faster than the HD 4600 GT2 chip on the LGA variants.

No launch date was mentioned but they could either fall in around the same date as the LGA and Mobile Intel Haswell launch on 2nd June or a bit later for NUC and All-In-One systems.