Intel: New Core Ultra Processors Deliver Breakthrough Performance

[1123581321]

This might be a better link than Intel's press release page since it contains more context for the packages and technical specs. https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-unveils-core-ultra-200v-lu...

This is an efficient laptop series with new cores capable of low idle and near idle power draw, with an integrated GPU analogous to AMD's 780M (looking forward to benchmarks.)

The AI comments in the PR are due to the package devoting space to a neural processor. They are claiming up to 48 TOPS which exceeds Apple's M4's reported 38 TOPS.

Similarly to Apple Silicon ARM, RAM is incorporated into the package. It has 4 p cores and 4 e cores like Apple's M1.

It's Intel, so looking forward to benchmarks and real world tests, and they will need to have a good desktop version of these packages later this year, but this new architecture appears to be headed in the right direction, finally.

[bearjaws]

> They are claiming up to 48 TOPS which exceeds Apple's M4's reported 38 TOPS.

38 TOPS at 15w in a tablet*

This is up to 48 TOPS at up to 37w

Something tells me the full 35w M4 will be somewhere above 48TOPS..

This is still a huge leap forward for Intel, especially integrating memory on die. I doubt it topples M4.

[FeepingCreature]

For comparison, my 7900 XTX, which is the most powerful card that AMD offers, hits a (specced) peak of 120 tflops with fp16 operations, at 300W.

However, when they say "TOPS" instead of "TFLOPS" that usually means something like int8, and it's unclear if this chip will support any float format, so with most networks you'll have to quantize first. Not sure what overhead that adds to get the same quality.

[7speter]

Couple of things,

1. Meteorlake was the first Intel soc with a NPU, it came out late late last year, if you’re curious.

2. There won’t be a desktop Lunar Lake (well, at least not one for a socketabpe atx desktop, maybe mini pcs). Instead, its 2nd gen (in this advanced SOC era) desktop counterpart is called Arrowlake. Rumors say it will be out next month.

Lunarlake is for ultra portables/ultralight notebooks, and Arrowlake will be used in desktops and beefier laptops.

[throwme_123]

Seems like 228V vs 238V is just binning on max freq...

If we take into account durability (some may say 125H is the best of the bunch right now...), they can be interesting solutions with a good perf/w ratio.

[OsrsNeedsf2P]

4/4 sentences in the first paragraph mentioning AI. No real specs. No benchmarks. Yikes.

[SV_BubbleTime]

I read through Samsung’s latest phone presser, more than 80% of the features were AI.

The camera features were almost entirely AI additions to zoom and processing.

It is going to be like this for a while it seems.

[dragontamer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1g1tltlVr0

Its been working this year so far. Erm... not for making money, but for raising money. (Exception: NVidia actually got profits)

[atty]

Rather cynical comments so far. I personally am very interested to see how this line of chips does, both in terms of performance (really efficiency, for this sort of chip), and market performance. Hopefully things like Lunar Lake, Arrow Lake, etc, and their 18a node all turn out to be as good as some of the early leaks and press releases make them would indicate, because Intel needs some big wins to get back on track.

[akira2501]

We spent decades taking leaps and bounds with every chip release. We've now seemingly settled into the incremental improvement phase. The chip makers have responded by burning tons of transistors on extra crap that spends most of it's life powered down.

It's hard not to be cynical.

[fhdsgbbcaA]

I’ve got an i9-1300K that shit the bed, which I had to replace with AMD.

I opened a return ticket with Intel, after a day+ delay they followed up with questions about the BIOS version. The mother board was no longer in service (see AMD above), so I couldn’t immediately answer their question. I Then they closed the support ticket.

So I have to start from square one, but I may not bother because the value of the time I’ve wasted on this already (10s of hours), vastly exceeds the cost of replacing all my chips with AMD.

There is NOTHING Intel could release that I would buy.

[Numerlor]

Confirming settings is standard and I had the same with AMD, the support person has to tick their boxes before they can forward you to RMA

[jeffbee]

They replied to my ticket asking about the motherboard and bios even though I had mentioned both and more in the initial ticket.

[MrDrMcCoy]

I'm still holding out a little hope that they release a competitive high end GPU, since their software stack is both good and fully featured on Linux.

[zuminator]

Peak performance is already good enough for most people. It's performance per watt where they still lag. Intel needs a Ballmer-like figure to remind their engineers, "Battery life, battery life, battery life."

[ben-schaaf]

Performance per watt and battery life are only somewhat related. For laptops idle and sleep power usage are far more important. For example the AMD AI 300 chips have better performance per watt than Snapdragon X Elite but have worse battery life.

[wmf]

That's exactly what they're claiming to deliver.

[hulitu]

> Peak performance is already good enough for most people

Citation needed. My work laptop is still crap when it is time to do real work.

[waynecochran]

If you would have told me in the 1980's we would still be using x86 based chips in 2024 I would have laughed at you. I bet DOS runs really really fast on them.

[madars]

Running or virtualizing DOS-era software can be non-trivial: see, for example, Windows 98 vs TLB cache invalidation behavior in modern CPUs https://blog.stuffedcow.net/2015/08/win9x-tlb-invalidation-b... requiring a patch. Any code that does loop counting to estimate cycles for sleep() will also overflow (hello, Pascal CRT Error 200!) requiring a different patch.

[deaddodo]

Is there a 30% improvement in Time-to-Degradation from bad voltage management?

[upon_drumhead]

Maybe they shouldn't be using "Breakthrough Performance" in their ad copy...

[mapkkk]

In the 20 or so years I've owned laptops, I think I only upgraded my memory once or twice, and yet I still can't warm up to integrated memory.

[grujicd]

I've upgraded memory on every laptop I owned. In Serbia (and I assume other smaller markets) you can't just freely configure your laptop, you pick from a selection that was imported, and you typically have to make some kind of compromise between performance, display, keyboard, etc. Having option to upgrade RAM or disk increases your choices in other variables.

Last year I bought MacBook Air, and only options available immediatelly were 8/256, 8/512 and 16/256. Since I wanted more RAM and more SSD I had to wait 2 months for delivery.

[PhilipRoman]

For some reason upgrading memory seems more cost efficient than just buying a better computer. For example I bought a mini PC for 140 EUR and upgraded to 32GB for additional 80 EUR. Meanwhile actual 32GB mini PCs with rougly equivalent CPU start at much higher prices.

[raffraffraff]

I've done it more than that because I've been buying refurbished or used laptops (generally ThinkPads) and maxing them out cheaply. If I were buying a new flagship machine every 5 years or so I doubt it would matter to me. But that used market is extremely important for keeping this stuff out of landfill for a few more years.

[kasabali]

Counterpoint: I've maxxed out memory in all my laptop and desktop pcs so far, even the machines for secondary uses I max them out using budget parts.

[qingcharles]

Yikes, a 32GB RAM limit seems a bit low in 2024, even for a laptop.

[hmottestad]

Can you get more than that in any thin and light laptop today? Even the macbook air maxes out at 24 GB.

Wait for the more power hungry SKUs. Their previous gen supported up to 96 GB of ram on the higher end SKUs.

[rock_artist]

Ahh I miss anandtech already :)

[ytch]

It seems like they didn't mention about process node.

Maybe all of its tiles are based on TMSC as some news revealed months ago, so they didn't want to discuss about this?

[greenknight]

Wikipedia is saying:

Compute tile - TSMC N3B

Platform Controller Tile - TSMC N6

Foveros Interposer Base Tile - Intel 22FFL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lake

[hmottestad]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16823/intel-accelerated-offen...

According to their own roadmap from a few years ago they should have been able to use their own 20A process node for this CPU.

[edelbitter]

Easy to miss when the product is named Core: they are really mean cores this time. No SMT.

[FridgeSeal]

Upside: you can have new cores, which are faster.

Downside: oh you thought performance, no we meant “even faster to burn out”.

[ksec]

I want to know its GB6 ST Benchmarks and its Wattage used during the run. i.e I want to compare GB6 ST / Watts figures.

GPU / Xe2 is difficult to measure. Because 99% of the value are from Drivers. Either we get a very very wide range of test, or we have to judge it from something else.

Cost ~ Perhaps the most important because Qualcomm is extremely price competitive. They are used to competing in Smartphone space which has a very different set of margins. Intel will need to face the new reality the good days aren't coming back.

And it has a hardware VVC Decoder! Cant wait to see reviews on it. The problem is Anandtech is gone. I need to figure out which site to go next.

[Sephr]

This processor series seems great for thin-and-light laptops and handheld gaming devices, yet Intel has decided to only include Thunderbolt 4 instead of Thunderbolt 5.

This limits the longevity, upgradability, and relevance of gaming products using Lunar Lake.

[kasabali]

> This limits the longevity, upgradability, and relevance of gaming products using Lunar Lake.

Darn thing has RAM in package and your worried not having thunderbolt 5 limits upgradability? :P

[hulitu]

> yet Intel has decided to only include Thunderbolt 4 instead of Thunderbolt 5.

Well, they weren't sure if Thunderbolt 8 or 9 will be appropiate so they sticked with 4. /s

[flo123456]

Power consumption sounds really good. Would be great to get this on a micro-ITX board with 4 SATA ports to replace my 10 year old home server. :-)

[hmottestad]

Or just use a laptop and you have a built in UPS and a backup keyboard and display already attached. If you can find one with Thunderbolt you should have the bandwidth for quite a few hard drives.

[pier25]

Is the integrated memory only for the laptop chips or do you think this will also come to desktops?

[high_na_euv]

This probably will slow down ARM

[clausecker]

No AVX-512, I think I'll pass.