Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads

[Tigerick]

As Hot Chips 34 starting this week, Intel will unveil technical information of upcoming Meteor Lake (MTL) and Arrow Lake (ARL), new generation platform after Raptor Lake. Both MTL and ARL represent new direction which Intel will move to multiple chiplets and combine as one SoC platform.

MTL also represents new compute tile that based on Intel 4 process which is based on EUV lithography, a first from Intel. Intel expects to ship MTL mobile SoC in 2023.

ARL will come after MTL so Intel should be shipping it in 2024, that is what Intel roadmap is telling us. ARL compute tile will be manufactured by Intel 20A process, a first from Intel to use GAA transistors called RibbonFET.



Comparison of upcoming Intel's U-series CPU: Core Ultra 100U, Lunar Lake and Panther Lake

Model	Code-Name	Date	TDP	Node	Tiles	Main Tile	CPU	LP E-Core	LLC	GPU	Xe-cores
Core Ultra 100U	Meteor Lake	Q4 2023	15 - 57 W	Intel 4 + N5 + N6	4	tCPU	2P + 8E	2	12 MB	Intel Graphics	4
?	Lunar Lake	Q4 2024	17 - 30 W	N3B + N6	2	CPU + GPU & IMC	4P + 4E	0	12 MB	Arc	8
?	Panther Lake	Q1 2026 ?	?	Intel 18A + N3E	3	CPU + MC	4P + 8E	4	?	Arc	12

Comparison of die size of Each Tile of Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake and Panther Lake

	Meteor Lake	Arrow Lake (N3B)	Lunar Lake	Panther Lake
Platform	Mobile H/U Only	Desktop & Mobile H&HX	Mobile U Only	Mobile H
Process Node	Intel 4	TSMC N3B	TSMC N3B	Intel 18A
Date	Q4 2023	Desktop-Q4-2024 H&HX-Q1-2025	Q4 2024	Q1 2026 ?
Full Die	6P + 8P	8P + 16E	4P + 4E	4P + 8E
LLC	24 MB	36 MB ?	12 MB	?
tCPU	66.48
tGPU	44.45
SoC	96.77
IOE	44.45
Total	252.15

Intel Core Ultra 100 - Meteor Lake



As mentioned by Tomshardware, TSMC will manufacture the I/O, SoC, and GPU tiles. That means Intel will manufacture only the CPU and Foveros tiles. (Notably, Intel calls the I/O tile an 'I/O Expander,' hence the IOE moniker.)

 

[DavidC1]

Google is added. It seems Deepl translate something wrongly. I believe Google is correct one.

Deepl is correct. It does say half a year late.

I just noticed that the slide showing Skymont outperforming Raptor Cove by 2% in "general software" there is a little note reading "when on the LLC ring."

So Skymonts in LL are not Raptor Coves. But they will be in ARL.

They said the cache effect is 5%. That means 2-3% behind. That is still pretty much Raptor Cove performance.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

From Intel best leaker😆

 

[invisible_city]

I mean it's kinda weird we know nothing about the actual CPU sku's. AMD and Qualcomm have released pretty much all the details for theirs.

Intel messed up again didn't they? I feel like a child whose father promised to take them to a ball game but instead got in a week long coke binge and ended up in rehab instead.

Intel, intel, intel.

We do have info on the SKUs, though not much:

Intel Core Ultra 7 268V "Lunar Lake" Final CPU Silicon Spotted With Clocks Close To 5 GHz, RVP & AI DevKit Pictured

Intel Lunar Lake CPUs are quite the upgrade and we managed to spot a working Core Ultra 7 268V silicon in its final state at Computex.

wccftech.com

What have they messed up?

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

I'm on my phone now so can't dig up the link. But earlier today I saw a video of a meteor lake in lunar lake laptop running a game both at 60 frames per second. The lunar lake power consumption for the soc was nearly half that of meteor lake. Perhaps 75% at times. Still this is enormous especially when you consider that this included memory power consumption for lunar lake but not for meteor lake.

The onboard memory is not consuming that much, probably only 2W, that's why 15->17W or 28->30W.
LNL is better than MTL, everything is better(CPUs, SoC, process, memory), so It's not surprising It is also more efficient.

 

[Hulk]

I saw this graph, but It is useless without any numbers.
Do we know at what power do they have the same perf/W ratio? No

I'm on my phone now so can't dig up the link. But earlier today I saw a video of a meteor lake in lunar lake laptop running a game both at 60 frames per second. The lunar lake power consumption for the soc was nearly half that of meteor lake. Perhaps 75% at times. Still this is enormous especially when you consider that this included memory power consumption for lunar lake but not for

The onboard memory is not consuming that much, probably only 2W, that's why 15->17W or 28->30W.
LNL is better than MTL, everything is better(CPUs, SoC, process, memory), so It's not surprising It is also more efficient.

Twice as efficient from one generation to the next is pretty astounding.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Twice as efficient from one generation to the next is pretty astounding.

It's against MTL, against AMD It would be more interesting.

 

[Joe NYC]

I mean it's kinda weird we know nothing about the actual CPU sku's. AMD and Qualcomm have released pretty much all the details for theirs.

Intel messed up again didn't they? I feel like a child whose father promised to take them to a ball game but instead got in a week long coke binge and ended up in rehab instead.

Intel, intel, intel.

From what I gathered, Lunar Lake was always scheduled for late 2024, for Q4 launch.

I think Intel is trying to pull-in the schedule to Q3.

 

[invisible_city]

From what I gathered, Lunar Lake was always scheduled for late 2024, for Q4 launch.

I think Intel is trying to pull-in the schedule to Q3.

It seems like they have succeeded. We’ll know in 3 months

 

[Saylick]

View attachment 100676

From Intel best leaker😆

I know who you're talking about, sadly.

Edit: Just checked their Xitter profile, and as expected they are on an Intel PR campaign just replying to everyone, especially posts that are supporting X Elite, with Lunar Lake press info.

 

[SiliconFly]

My guess is that this person confused it with Arrow Lake mobile, which should be a CES2025 launch. After all, Arrow Lake is the product that competes with Strix and X Elite, Lunar Lake is one Performance (and power) tier lower. I mean literally everyone said September for Lunar Lake even a few months ago.

Considering LNL is N3B, hitting retail shelves with good volume on September is not a difficult task.

 

[SiliconFly]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798699363763699760

Raichu is saying LNC is held back by LNL.

" it is almost not the problem and the comparison is in worse conditions and not full-configuration.(LNL has less L3+SLC, low power fabric, and 2.5M instead of 3M L3)"

Let's hope it's true for the sake of LNC.

16% more than Raptor Cove would be hilarious.

Actually, IPC less than that of RPC would be even more hilarious!

 

[dullard]

Deleted, my mistake.

 

[DavidC1]

Q3 launch would mean announcement. Real availability of laptops will be Q4. Volume availability with wide selections will be towards Christmas time/CES 2025. This is still earlier than typical announcement, where it's Jan launch with availability in Mar and later.

It's different for desktop chips, because it's up to the user to put the chips in their board, thus launch is basically availability. They need to launch Lunarlake in Q2 to make laptops in Q3.

 

[Hulk]

I have to say I'm kind of hyped for Lunar Lake. Lion Cove is looking to get a nice bump and Skymont the star of the show. ARL and Zen 5 is going to be an epic battle!

 

[SpudLobby]

Does Arrow Lake mobile have the crappy 2-core LPE island on the SoC tile that’s fudgy and makes scheduling weirder? I wouldn’t want that lol.

I have read they’re ditching it but for desktop — true of mobile too, right? Probably they can afford to ditch it with better E Cores and maybe some Ring changes + N3.

 

[SpudLobby]

Q3 launch would mean announcement. Real availability of laptops will be Q4. Volume availability with wide selections will be towards Christmas time/CES 2025. This is still earlier than typical announcement, where it's Jan launch with availability in Mar and later.

It's different for desktop chips, because it's up to the user to put the chips in their board, thus launch is basically availability. They need to launch Lunarlake in Q2 to make laptops in Q3.

Yep. I think it’ll be better than Meteor Lake in December by far and that we’ll see some stuff from Lenovo, HP, Asus, but expect a Q4/Q1 split on releases.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Does Arrow Lake mobile have the crappy 2-core LPE island on the SoC tile that’s fudgy and makes scheduling weirder? I wouldn’t want that lol.

I have read they’re ditching it but for desktop — true of mobile too, right? Probably they can afford to ditch it with better E Cores and maybe some Ring changes + N3.

AFAIK The LPE cores still exist on Arrow Lake Mobile (Both U MTL Refresh and H). And they're still Crestmont based unless Intel did deeper changes to the SoC.

The Desktop one gets a new SoC without LPE cores. So maybe plans changed to Arrow H too.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Yep. I think it’ll be better than Meteor Lake in December by far and that we’ll see some stuff from Lenovo, HP, Asus, but expect a Q4/Q1 split on releases.

Meteor Lake was basically a joke announcement so that Intel wasn't sued by investors. Designs only truly ramped by CES 24 and there isn't many MTL designs in the market still (when compared to a real Intel Mobile launch).

So, in that sense, Lunar Lake should be a much better launch and ramp up.

 

[SpudLobby]

It's against MTL, against AMD It would be more interesting.

I agree but Intel is vastly closer to AMD on CPU power than anyone wants to admit. Maybe RDNA blows Intel out at some points, but the Qualcomm graphs have AMD and Intel’s platform power very similar, AMD is like + 15-20% maybe at some points. Intel claims they are matching MTL ST at half the watts (presumably from a package power standpoint) which is closer to Qualcomm than AMD at that point based on QC’s own graphs.

 

[SpudLobby]

AFAIK The LPE cores still exist on Arrow Lake Mobile (Both U MTL Refresh and H). And they're still Crestmont based unless Intel did deeper changes to the SoC.

The Desktop one gets a new SoC without LPE cores. So maybe plans changed to Arrow H too.

Well that sucks. Too much complexity and silliness. Would be different if they were powerful enough.

Panther Lake adopts LNL design philosophy though right? Just with a separate GPU tile now.

 

[SpudLobby]

Meteor Lake was basically a joke announcement so that Intel wasn't sued by investors. Designs only truly ramped by CES 24 and there isn't many MTL designs in the market still (when compared to a real Intel Mobile launch).

So, in that sense, Lunar Lake should be a much better launch and ramp up.

Yeah, though they had one part available the Zenbook S13/14 pretty soon, but yes. If I had to guess, we will see CES being the majority, but nothing like the 97/3% ratio that felt like Meteor Lake was. I would guess like 60-70% or something from 2025 vs 2024 Lunar Lake Laptops launched. Which is fine imo. As long as they have some select big design wins and availability for holidays it’s legit.

 

[Joe NYC]

Q3 launch would mean announcement. Real availability of laptops will be Q4. Volume availability with wide selections will be towards Christmas time/CES 2025. This is still earlier than typical announcement, where it's Jan launch with availability in Mar and later.

It's different for desktop chips, because it's up to the user to put the chips in their board, thus launch is basically availability. They need to launch Lunarlake in Q2 to make laptops in Q3.

I wonder if Intel may have Osborned itself with the Lunar Lake pre-launch at Computex. Of the knowledgeable buyers, who is going to buy Meteor Lake for next 4-5 months if much better thin and light laptops are right around the corner?

 

[The Hardcard]

I wonder if Intel may have Osborned itself with the Lunar Lake pre-launch at Computex. Of the knowledgeable buyers, who is going to buy Meteor Lake for next 4-5 months if much better thin and light laptops are right around the corner?

I don’t think many knowledgeable buyers were getting Meteor Lake regardless.

Lunar Lake, at least from the slides, looks extremely impressive and the future of Intel’s ability to compete. i’m wondering how much is going to make knowledgeable people not want Arrow Lake knowing that better cores exist.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Panther Lake adopts LNL design philosophy though right? Just with a separate GPU tile now.

Yes. PTL and beyond have a much more sane tile design, with fewer tiles. PTL has 3 tiles (CPU + SOC, GPU and PCD) + base Foveros 3D.

I wonder if Intel may have Osborned itself with the Lunar Lake pre-launch at Computex. Of the knowledgeable buyers, who is going to buy Meteor Lake for next 4-5 months if much better thin and light laptops are right around the corner?

There should be a significant difference in pricing between Lunar Lake and Meteor Lake designs. So it should be fine.

Meteor Lake also scales up to H Gaming/Workstation Laptops, while Lunar is solely focused on premium ultrathin.

But really, Intel strategy is to have multiple overlapping product families in the market by 2025. Raptor, Meteor, Arrow, Lunar and Panther will all co-exist in the Mobile space next year.

Then, by 2026, Panther Lake should replace Meteor, Arrow and Lunar (Not really) and be the only product family alongside Raptor.

(There's also Wildcat Lake. But I dunno what market this thing is for)

 

[Wolverine2349]

If Skymont IPC and overall performance in the too good to be true by this Fall really is true, let Intel Atom Austin team have all their Skymont cores in Arrow Lake SKUs and Lion Cove be scrapped.

Lion Cove having only 10-15% IPC over Sjkymont and only 600-800MHz clock speed advantage at triple or more the die size area, Israel Design Center does not deserve their cores in such case in the upcoming Arrow Lake SKUs.

But once again if the Skymont rumors of Raptor Cove IPC and maybe high 4.GHz clocks or even 5GHz all core feel too good to be true as fast as Fall 2024, it probably is.

But if what's too good to be true becomes true by this Fall. Intel please Skymnont only Arrow Lake SKUs with 16 or even more cores this fall on shelves and homogenous arch.

Who cares about only a small single thread performance uplift when you can get Golden Cove or Raptor Cove IPC or better with Skymont core 4.XGHz with X being high number or even 5GHz clocks if the too good to be true becomes amazingly true.

No really need for Lion Cove in above case especially since majority of market is mobile anyways. Just take it Intel losing single thread to AMD but a little bit especially if the Austin Atom team can evolve it even more to deliver Conroe knockout in a year or 2.

But once again if it feels too good to be true by this Fall it probably is. But maybe not???