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

[Tigerick]

Wildcat Lake (WCL) Preliminary Specs

Intel Wildcat Lake (WCL) is upcoming mobile SoC replacing ADL-N. WCL consists of 2 tiles: compute tile and PCD tile. It is true single die consists of CPU, GPU and NPU that is fabbed by 18-A process. Last time I checked, PCD tile is fabbed by TSMC N6 process. They are connected through UCIe, not D2D; a first from Intel. Expecting launching in Q2/Computex 2026. In case people don't remember AlderLake-N, I have created a table below to compare the detail specs of ADL-N and WCL. Just for fun, I am throwing LNL and upcoming Mediatek D9500 SoC.

		Intel Alder Lake - N	Intel Wildcat Lake	Intel Lunar Lake		Mediatek D9500
Launch Date		Q1-2023	Q2-2026 ?	Q3-2024		Q3-2025
Model		Intel N300	?	Core Ultra 7 268V		Dimensity 9500 5G
Dies		2	2	2		1
Node		Intel 7 + ?	Intel 18-A + TSMC N6	TSMC N3B + N6		TSMC N3P
CPU		8 E-cores	2 P-core + 4 LP E-cores	4 P-core + 4 LP E-cores		C1 1+3+4
Threads		8	6	8		8
Max Clock		3.8 GHz	?	5 GHz
L3 Cache		6 MB	?	12 MB
TDP		7 W	Fanless ?	17 W		Fanless
Memory		64-bit LPDDR5-4800	64-bit LPDDR5-6800 ?	128-bit LPDDR5X-8533		64-bit LPDDR5X-10667
Size		16 GB	?	32 GB		24 GB ?
Bandwidth			~ 55 GB/s	136 GB/s		85.6 GB/s
GPU		UHD Graphics		Arc 140V		G1 Ultra
EU / Xe		32 EU	2 Xe	8 Xe		12
Max Clock		1.25 GHz		2 GHz
NPU		NA	18 TOPS	48 TOPS		100 TOPS ?

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.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Intel was claiming 40% scenario power reduction over MTL, alongside others power gating and limited power usage improvements. So parity with best in class Arm designs is certainly achievable.

 

[uzzi38]

I’ll let Uzzi for ex come in on this if he wants to.

I mean that's what the other forum dweller here has said but I can't confirm or deny it myself. I can't say for certain that's what the stack for LNL would look like

 

[SiliconFly]

...alongside others power gating and limited power usage improvements...

Thats what they said about MTL too (and it didn't turn out well). Without seeing LNL in action, we can only hope it's better.

 

[SiliconFly]

I think this has been said repeatedly before, but it bears repeating: no single product matters anymore, only execution/iteration speed. LNL can be as mediocre as they come, the important part is how fast they're able to introduce the next meaningful upgrade.

Actually, only part of that is true. If LNC underperforms, Intel may never recover as lots rides on LNC. In it's current state, Intel is not strong enough to handle another blow of such magnitude.

If Intel fails with LNL then I got no hope for them for the low power SoCs from them. They need to match or exceed M3 in ST(GB6) because optics.

I don't think LNL is even close to matching M3 in ST. It doesn't have to. It just needs to be just good enough.

 

[FlameTail]

I don't think LNL is even close to matching M3 in ST. It doesn't have to. It just needs to be just good enough.

That sounds like copium.

In my opinion, if Lunar Lake can't atleast match the ST of X Elite, it's a failure.

 

[dullard]

That sounds like copium.

Lunar Lake should have a drastically improved NPU and GPU compared to Meteor Lake. It also will be down to ~8 W of power for fanless applications. Put that all together and it doesn't leave much power left for the CPU. Lunar lake's CPU is only going to be good enough for the NPU and GPU to do their work.

Lunar Lake is more for applications like ultralight laptops, tablets, handheld gaming, industrial controls, and commercial kiosks. It won't be a CPU workstation powerhouse.

 

[SpudLobby]

I mean that's what the other forum dweller here has said but I can't confirm or deny it myself. I can't say for certain that's what the stack for LNL would look like

Thanks. That’s all I wanted. Agreed it’s all speculation.

 

[SpudLobby]

That sounds like copium.

In my opinion, if Lunar Lake can't atleast match the ST of X Elite, it's a failure.

Eh, it’s not copium because the M2/M3 is Apple and only competes to a very limited extent. A lot of people I know who switched (yes, Doug, it’s a small segment but it is real and that’s part of why LNL exists for Intel) wouldn’t have if Windows laptops which offer more variety and lower pricepoints iso-RAM/SSD had something tolerable.

Is LNL going to be mediocre if not laughable given it’s on N3B with 140mm^2 and it’s been 4 years since the M1, and Intel is the legacy chipmaker with resources? Absolutely IMO.

But given what I said about Apple, AMD isn’t even targeting the fanless or 17-30W *ultra efficient/long battery life* style chip market, and then the fact that not all of the major X86 Windows ecosystem is yet ported which hurts Qualcomm a bit*, and that Intel will have plenty of laptop design wins — Intel can sadly get away with something just ok relative to the year and the time/resources or the competition.


Doesn’t mean it’ll sell as well as it could without Qualcomm’s X Plus/Elite in the counterfactual, or without Strix. So they’re on backfoot. But like realistically it will ship a bit.

*For example and to my point:

LNL per the leaked documents will only match the M1 GPU perf @ 12W, not beat it, and it can beat the M2 albeit at higher power. So that’s just good enough, but not impressive in light of the time and area/node.

Yet even tho Qualcomm’s iGPU will be more efficient and same the CPU, Lunar Lake won’t have the games compatibility issue or emulation hit. So for someone wanting to play A) light games on a 15-20W ultrabook and otherwise use it for school/business, hard to recommend Snapdragon and Strix is not going to quite have the same target.

 

[igor_kavinski]

handheld gaming

It's gonna need some serious game engine patches to make sure that two of the least intensive threads fall on the E-cores. Otherwise, any time the main game engine thread gets scheduled on the E-core, there will be performance loss and/or hitching. Games could be a stuttering mess, especially those that depend heavily on multithreading. Four P-cores is less than the minimum six cores that most game engines have come to expect from gaming machines. There's a reason that AMD didn't introduce anything lower than the core count of Ryzen Z1. Lower core count would be detrimental to typical games.

 

[dullard]

It's gonna need some serious game engine patches to make sure that two of the least intensive threads fall on the E-cores. Otherwise, any time the main game engine thread gets scheduled on the E-core, there will be performance loss and/or hitching. Games could be a stuttering mess, especially those that depend heavily on multithreading. Four P-cores is less than the minimum six cores that most game engines have come to expect from gaming machines. There's a reason that AMD didn't introduce anything lower than the core count of Ryzen Z1. Lower core count would be detrimental to typical games.

Yes, heavily multithreaded games might not do well.

The ability for programmers to specify only P-cores for specific threads has been around since Alder Lake in 2021. If the game developers haven't added the one line of code to specify which threads shouldn't go on E-cores by the time Lunar Lake is out, that is a really sad failure on the game developers part.

 

[Philste]

From current Keynote, dude on Twitter posted it, although it's not openly available and probably under NDA.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Lunar Lake should have a drastically improved NPU and GPU compared to Meteor Lake. It also will be down to ~8 W of power for fanless applications. Put that all together and it doesn't leave much power left for the CPU. Lunar lake's CPU is only going to be good enough for the NPU and GPU to do their work.

Lunar Lake is more for applications like ultralight laptops, tablets, handheld gaming, industrial controls, and commercial kiosks. It won't be a CPU workstation powerhouse.

I'd argue 8W is plenty of power for GPU + NPU + CPU. Specially if you want your design to be on fanless models. Specially as we have Smartphones, Macbooks Air, SteamDeck, Switch, etc all being designs that sip power while providing high performance for their applications.

The problem lies at Intel inability at design P Cores that are efficient from the low to the high end power curve. That's something AMD is much better and they need it to be fixed with Lion Cove for LNL to shine.

Intel will have plenty of laptop design wins

There wad a rumor last year that LNL has 3x as many design wins as MTL had. Intel claimed MTL had 200+ design wins at launch, so we're looking at LNL having 600+ design wins.

If it's true, it's a pretty rosy picture for OEMs confidence on LNL.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

From current Keynote, dude on Twitter posted it, although it's not openly available and probably under NDA.
View attachment 96571View attachment 96572View attachment 96573

>100 peak TOPs??? So the BMG iGPU adds the XMX cores that MTL had removed? + the NPU is much more performant.

Also, first time I'm hearing Panther Lake is 18A, I3 and External. I assume External is the Celestial iGPU tile. 18A for Cougar Cove and Intel 3 for ??? (SoC?)

 

[Tigerick]

>100 peak TOPs??? So the BMG iGPU adds the XMX cores that MTL had removed? + the NPU is much more performant.

Also, first time I'm hearing Panther Lake is 18A, I3 and External. I assume External is the Celestial iGPU tile. 18A for Cougar Cove and Intel 3 for ??? (SoC?)

Panther Lake is new design with 2 tiles only. 18A is for CPU+SoC, tGPU is available for 2 version: Intel 3 for 4 XE and N3E for 12 XE

 

[SiliconFly]

From current Keynote, dude on Twitter posted it, although it's not openly available and probably under N

Intel always has the best slides in the market!

Panther Lake is new design with 2 tiles only. 18A is for CPU+SoC, tGPU is available for 2 version: Intel 3 for 4 XE and N3E for 12 XE

In the first slide, for the first time, Arrow Lake is being associated with Intel 3! Any ideas?

 

[Tigerick]

Intel always has the best slides in the market!


In the first slide, for the first time, Arrow Lake is being associated with Intel 3! Any ideas?

Should be Arrow Lake-U with Intel 3's tCPU, replacing MTL-U

 

[Philste]

>100 peak TOPs??? So the BMG iGPU adds the XMX cores that MTL had removed? + the NPU is much more performant.

Bionic Squash already leaked that ARLs iGPU (also with XMX) alone has more than double the TOPs of whole Meteor Lake Combined (70+). LNLs iGPU probably isn't worse and then it has a 40+ TOPS NPU.

 

[SiliconFly]

View attachment 96571

The first slide says Intel 4 has been in production since H2 2023. That makes it a ELV node.

(Extremely Low Volume)

 

[dullard]

In the first slide, for the first time, Arrow Lake is being associated with Intel 3! Any ideas?

There was a brief discussion in December 2021 from @IntelUser2000 and then @Ajay that Arrow Lake was on Intel 3. But no real details were given. https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...ure-lakes-rapids-thread.2509080/post-40656166

 

[SiliconFly]

Should be Arrow Lake-U with Intel 3's tCPU, replacing MTL-U

Maybe. It's very confusing. LNC is a node agnostic design. But having it in 3 different nodes 20A & N3B & Intel 3 at the same time is just too ridiculous. It is either a very bad or a very desperate or a brilliant business decision. Not sure which.

 

[SiliconFly]

...Intel 3 for 4 XE...

Are you sure Intel 3 is for 4 Xe? Looks like it's actually for the tCPU after all. Not sure though.

 

[Philste]

In the first slide, for the first time, Arrow Lake is being associated with Intel 3! Any ideas?

Is far is I know ARL-U is a Refresh of MTL om Intel 3. So basically ARL-U isn't ARL.

 

[Hulk]

I'm not hyped on NPU's, should I be? If I'm feeling lazy and I need a numerical solution to a math problem with no closed for solution or some other work that is boring for me to do manually I just hit up ChatGPT. It doesn't happen that often actually.

Am I stuck in the past and missing AI opportunities in my daily life/work?

 

[Saylick]

FYI - C&C has a new article on MTL's iGPU:

Intel’s Ambitious Meteor Lake iGPU

Intel and AMD both tried to ship iGPUs fast enough to compete with low end discrete cards over the past 10 years with mixed results.

chipsandcheese.com

 

[dullard]

I'm not hyped on NPU's, should I be? If I'm feeling lazy and I need a numerical solution to a math problem with no closed for solution or some other work that is boring for me to do manually I just hit up ChatGPT. It doesn't happen that often actually.

Am I stuck in the past and missing AI opportunities in my daily life/work?

What have you tried?

I like the potential for AI. Software like Teams can already summarize a meeting that you didn't attend and tell you what are your action items. Or have Outlook tell you what your boss things of topic X. Or have Copilot read a patent and explain how it might impact the design of what you are working on. Or have Excel tell you how data in column A impacts column B. All of these things already work in AI. And I can certainly understand why you don't want things like that done online with ChatGPT but would instead want it done locally on an NPU--especially when it deals with business secrets.

I think mostly we need training on what it can do now and how to use it effectively.