Intel is gearing up to launch new processors based on its flagship Lunar Lake architecture. The company recently showcased its advancements in AI and new GPUs. It unveiled details of Lunar Lake at the Intel AI PC Open House Event in India, headed by Akshay Kamath – Director of PC Client Category (India). Here’s a look at Intel’s latest technologies.
Intel Lunar Lake Architecture
Intel’s Lunar Lake architecture is designed for power efficiency, making it suitable for portable devices like laptops and notebooks without compromising performance. It combines Performance Cores (P-cores) and Efficiency Cores (E-cores) to achieve the best balance between less demanding tasks, performance-focused work, and idle power consumption.
Lunar Lake processors will feature up to 8 cores in a 4+4 split of performance and efficiency cores. As per Intel, these chipsets will offer improvements in battery life by up to 60%. Lunar Lake is positioned to compete against ARM-based CPUs for laptops. They are expected to be the most efficient x86 processors developed by Intel.
Intel has yet to reveal the exact technical details of Lunar Lake. We know that the chipmaker will equip them with the new Xe2 GPUs as integrated graphics, delivering up to 80% better gaming performance. They will also feature NPU 4 with up to 48 TOPS AI capabilities.
Another major change with the Lunar Lake processors is ‘Memory on Package.’ The chipsets will have integrated RAM modules for faster data access and reduced latency. This decreases the overall system power consumption, further improving your laptop’s efficiency.
Intel Xe2 GPUs: Improved Gaming and AI Performance
The Xe2 GPUs will be featured on the upcoming Lunar Lake processors. They will feature up to eight 2nd-gen Xe-cores that will offer huge improvements in gaming performance. The GPUs are designed to handle up to three displays at 4K 60fps with HDR.
These graphics modules will also feature XMX AI acceleration with performance capabilities of up to 67 TOPS and eight enhanced ray tracing units. The entire package will be paired with the Xe Media Engine to ensure peak performance and the best efficiency for low-power tasks using new VVC codec technology.
The Intel Xe2 graphics will be among the fastest integrated graphics on a laptop. They leverage Intel’s latest and greatest architectures to ensure optimised power consumption and the highest performance in peak loads.
Intel NPU 4: Highest AI performance
Intel’s upcoming processors will feature NPU 4 architecture capable of up to 48 TOPS. For reference, the Snapdragon X Elite processor supports 45 TOPS, while the Apple M4 supports 38 TOPS. The NPU 4 architecture will make Lunar Lake processors among the fastest chips for AI tasks on a consumer PC.
NPU 4 features a higher number of engines and better clock speeds to achieve the performance boost. It also gets twice as much DMA bandwidth to help applications related to large language models (LLMs). Vision models can also utilize NPU 4 for improved performance in multimedia-related AI tasks.
Intel’s Lunar Lake processors will arrive in consumer markets by Q3 2024. The company is expected to unveil the exact core configuration, clock speeds, and other technical details during the commercial launch of Lunar Lake.
