It is not very common to see a laptop chip or processor on a motherboard for a conventional PC. Even so, it is not something impossible to do and this is the approach of this motherboard, the Meterstone Alder Lake H45, which has an Intel Core 12 CPU soldered as standard. How have they made it possible and how is it different from a conventional one?
Laptop processors are not usually seen in traditional desktop computers, except for the so-called All-in-One. There are several reasons for this, such as the fact that they use a different type of socket, it is that they do not even use it, since they are soldered to the plate. Another reason is in the part of the circuitry in charge of distributing electrical energy, which works differently both internally of the CPU, the rest of the components and the board.
The second case is the reason why we do not see laptop and desktop designs, since the former are designed to achieve a lower and more limited TDP than the latter. It is totally logical that if we do not have temperature and consumption limitations we want to make the processor get the best out of itself and that is why we do not see laptop chips on desktops. Well, it seems that a Chinese company has dared and has created a motherboard with a portable processor.
This is the Meterstone Alder Lake H45
Yes, it is about the Meterstone Alder Lake H45, a motherboard that, like many desktop motherboards, has DIMM modules to connect the corresponding DDR4 RAM. As well as a slot PCI Express Gen 4 16 lanes to connect the graphics card. However, what is striking is that the processor is soldered to the board, since it is specifically a Intel Core i5-12500H with 12 cores and 14 threads and a TDP of 45 W. Which, as you may have already deduced, is welded to the plate and forms an integral part of it, due to the fact that it is a Intel Core 12 for laptops and not a tower CPU.
Seeing the image of the motherboard, you have it above these lines, you will have noticed that the chipset is missing, but it has an explanation. Being a laptop processor, it lacks a chipset as it is integrated into the same CPU. Let’s not forget that computers of this type are scarce in terms of space on the board and must be used to the last millimeter, a problem that it does not share with desktop computers.
At the moment we do not know if the Meterstone Alder Lake H45 will remain exclusively for the Chinese market, although logic tells us that it will. In any case, these motherboards that combine laptop and desktop hardware in the same computer are still curious. Would you be interested in a motherboard with a laptop processor like this model, instead, do you see it as a waste of time or a bad idea since it cannot reach the performance peaks of standard PC versions?
