Intel’s new Lunar Lake CPU is concurrently great, bizarre and worrisome, however has the makings of an superior handheld gaming chip

So, Intel has lifted the lid on its radical Lunar Lake cell CPU and it is an terrible lot to soak up. It is new throughout the board. New CPU cores, new graphics structure, a brand new strategy to each the inner material of the chip and its multi-die development, a brand new exterior foundry node, simply new all the pieces. And true to Intel’s present mojo generally, Lunar Lake is a captivating mixture of great, bizarre, worrisome and, effectively, no matter.

The great bits begin with the brand new E-cores, which Intel says are roughly on par with the complete P-cores in right now’s Raptor Lake desktop CPU for efficiency per clock. To get the complete efficiency from these new Skymont E-cores, they’re going to should be absolutely built-in into the CPU’s high-performance material, which is not the case with this new processor (however can be for future desktop CPUs utilizing Skymont cores).

In Lunar Lake, they’re separated off right into a so-called low-power island within the identify of effectivity and due to this fact have much less cache than they in any other case would and fewer optimum entry to the accessible high-level cache. However you are still taking a look at a significant step over the E cores in another Intel CPU.

Certainly, Intel reckons Lunar Lake is designed to get just about all the pieces executed whereas working on battery energy on these E-cores. The P-cores will not often, if ever get fired up whereas on battery.

The P-cores in Lunar Lake, referred to as Lion Cove, additionally get a wholesome IPC increase. All advised, the result’s that Intel claims {that a} Lunar Lake processor with 4 E-cores and 4 P-cores outperforms Intel’s present Meteor Lake laptop computer CPU with 10 E-cores and 6 P-cores.

Put one other method, that is eight Lunar Lake threads beating 22 Meteor Lake threads. The thread rely hole is partly right down to Intel dropping HyperThreading for Lunar Lake’s P cores. Spectacular, nevertheless you take a look at it.

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One other doubtlessly great component is the brand new Battlemage iGPU, which carries over the eight execution unit rely from Meteor Lake, however nonetheless will increase efficiency by round 50% because of a significant redesign.

Alternatively, Lunar Lake can match the gaming efficiency of Meteor Lake whereas utilizing roughly 35 to 40% much less energy. Take all of it collectively and Lunar Lake has the makings of 1 heck of a handheld gaming PC chip. If something, it seems much more promising than AMD’s new Strix Level, which seems fast however has us fearful about energy consumption.

Furthermore, Intel has put arguably extra effort into this chip to cut back energy consumption than ever earlier than: The E-cores have been separated fully from the P-cores, the inner material and structure of the chip are radically completely different to earlier Intel designs, the tile rely has been lowered over Meteor Lake, the reminiscence has been moved on to the package deal. Nicely, you get the concept.

So, that is Intel’s finest effort. It additionally bodes effectively for the long run. We won’t wait to see these new cores on the desktop and the identical goes for the Battlemage GPU structure. It could actually’t come quickly sufficient in discrete desktop format.

As for the bizarre and worrisome, let’s begin with manufacturing tech. The compute tile in Lunar Lake relies on TSMC N3B. That clearly would not say a lot constructive about Intel’s inner course of nodes.

Quickly after he arrived again at Intel as CEO, Pat Gelsinger set what he claimed was a daring goal of 5 new nodes from Intel in 4 years. Nicely, we’re just about three years in, Lunar Lake will not be on sale for just a few months but and someway no Intel node’s ok for this chip.

The selection of N3B itself is arguably a bit of bizarre, too. Up to now, solely Apple has used TSMC’s N3B node. The yields and prices of N3B have been fairly crummy, reportedly, so everybody else is ready for the cheaper, better-yielding N3E node from TSMC.

Certainly, the newest scuttlebutt is that Apple cannot get out of N3B quick sufficient, which is why its new M4 chip on N3E got here out so shortly after the N3B-based M3 sequence and why a number of Apple merchandise are going to skip the M3 line fully. The N3B-based Apple M3 chips additionally upset for efficiency and effectivity, comparatively talking, whereas the brand new M4 on N3E seems like a killer. Truthful to say, N3B hasn’t been TSMC’s most interesting hour.

The timing and market positioning of Lunar Lake feels a bit of irregular, too. The Meteor Lake household of laptop computer chips actually solely turned accessible in correct volumes earlier this yr, and already Intel is rolling out a very new laptop computer chip.

After all, Lunar Lake is not a full household of laptop computer chips—it is solely masking a low-power area of interest. Perhaps it is Meteor Lake that is the issue that Lunar Lake is fixing. But when Intel delivers on its roadmap, we’ll have one more new cell CPU household in Panther Lake earlier than the top of subsequent yr. Nonetheless you slice it, all of it seems a bit of advert hoc and messy.

It is also a bit of worrisome that Intel did not present any detailed efficiency numbers for the brand new chip or any indications of clock speeds. For positive, this is not a product launch, so last specs might not fairly be accessible. However the arduous knowledge was fairly skinny on the bottom.

If I needed to speculate, I would say Lunar Lake is being rushed out for 2 causes. First, Meteor Lake might not have been as efficient and environment friendly as Intel deliberate. It actually wasn’t an enormous step ahead for efficiency or battery life.

Second, Meteor Lake would not qualify for Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI PC definition, as its NPU is not highly effective sufficient. Intel certainly did not need to wait till Panther Lake late subsequent yr to have a Copilot+ AI product to go up towards AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 chips and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite. So, Intel desperately wanted a chip with a extra highly effective NPU.

And so we’ve got Lunar Lake in all its great weirdness. Actually, I am undecided if the design is an indication that innovation continues to be alive at Intel or proof that it nonetheless hasn’t acquired its home so as. Sufficient is happening to make a half-decent case for each arguments. However no matter you concentrate on Intel’s new cell chip, it is actually not boring.