We've just confirmed that Intel has made some changes to the consumer Nehalem CPU socket and it will be losing four pins, and as such, LGA 1160 is dead and it will be replaced by LGA 1156. From what we've managed to find out, these pins didn't have any actual use and were hence removed.

However, it's unusual for socket changes to occur, especially once a specific socket has been announced in as much detail as Intel has done with LGA 1160. There's still a lot of unknown factors about the next generation of mainstream processors from Intel and with all the rumors going around, it doesn't look like this will be one of the best platforms the company has come up with.

Not only will these processors be near enough impossible to overclock from what we've heard so far, but we've also heard whispers about the P55/Ibex peak chipset possibly having stability issues, although with a good nine months or so to go before we're expecting retail products to appear, Intel should have plenty of time to sort that out.

IDF Taipei is Monday and Tuesday next week, and we'll try to find out some more details about all this for you then, as we'll be attending.