Photo leaks of Intel's new Laminar RM1 stock cooler for upcoming 65W Alder Lake CPUs: enhanced cooling chops for non-K 12th-gen CPUs

Tipster @momomo_us recently outed what appears to be a picture of Intel's Laminar RM1 stock cooler. Earlier leaks indicated that Intel was working on a number of new stock cooler options for Alder Lake. These included the formidable-looking RH1 for higher-end CPUs like the i9-12900, and the RM1 for more mainstream CPUs. The Laminar RM1, when it arrives, would be Intel's first truly new stock cooler design in over a decade. Barring minor tweaks to the color scheme, the stock cooler on everything from Sandy Bridge to Rocket Lake has remained more or less unchanged.

Intel typically only ships its stock cooler with lower-power non-K parts that lack overclocking capabilities. This has allowed it to skimp on cooling capabilities, since these processors will rarely be pushed beyond their nominal power limits. AMD, on the other hand, enables overclocking across almost all of its CPUs and ships most of them with Wraith coolers.

We expect the Laminar RM1 to ship with frequency-locked non-K Alder Lake CPUs like the upcoming Core i7-12700. Increased Alder Lake power draw might mean that the RM1's enhanced cooling capabilities will be put to good use.

Check out the Intel Core i9-12700K here on Amazon.