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

[Tigerick]

Wildcat Lake (WCL) Specs

Intel Wildcat Lake (WCL) is upcoming mobile SoC replacing Raptor Lake-U. 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 Q1 2026.

		Intel Raptor Lake U	Intel Wildcat Lake 15W?	Intel Lunar Lake		Intel Panther Lake 4+0+4
Launch Date		Q1-2024	Q2-2026	Q3-2024		Q1-2026
Model		Intel 150U	Intel Core 7	Core Ultra 7 268V		Core Ultra 7 365
Dies		2	2	2		3
Node		Intel 7 + ?	Intel 18-A + TSMC N6	TSMC N3B + N6		Intel 18-A + Intel 3 + TSMC N6
CPU		2 P-core + 8 E-cores	2 P-core + 4 LP E-cores	4 P-core + 4 LP E-cores		4 P-core + 4 LP E-cores
Threads		12	6	8		8
Max Clock		5.4 GHz	?	5 GHz		4.8 GHz
L3 Cache		12 MB		12 MB		12 MB
TDP		15 - 55 W	15 W ?	17 - 37 W		25 - 55 W
Memory		128-bit LPDDR5-5200	64-bit LPDDR5	128-bit LPDDR5x-8533		128-bit LPDDR5x-7467
Size		96 GB		32 GB		128 GB
Bandwidth				136 GB/s
GPU		Intel Graphics	Intel Graphics	Arc 140V		Intel Graphics
RT		No	No	YES		YES
EU / Xe		96 EU	2 Xe	8 Xe		4 Xe
Max Clock		1.3 GHz	?	2 GHz		2.5 GHz
NPU		GNA 3.0	18 TOPS	48 TOPS		49 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.

 

[ondma]

P cores do well when fed massive amounts of power. If you just keep adding P cores, then within a given power budget, each subsequent P core gets less and less power. Meaning, very soon you get P cores with not enough power to work well. It could actually perform worse in games unless you get a CPU with a pitiful base clock and a massive power hungry turbo clock--but only turbo for the right number of cores to match your game.

If power use and heat dissipation weren't issues, then your desire would be great. But, in a real world situation, no chip can follow your dream path.

Huh?? AMD puts 16 "P" cores in 7950x and they seem to work just fine, and at much lower power than Intel 8+16 which is required to give similar MT performance.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

40% lower video playback power is 60% higher battery life. Now we're cooking.

That's only for the CPU(SoC), right?
Then you won't see 60% higher battery life.

 

[dullard]

Huh?? AMD puts 16 "P" cores in 7950x and they seem to work just fine, and at much lower power than Intel 8+16 which is required to give similar MT performance.

AMD has a more power efficient big core, and a different TDP, so their optimum number of big cores is different than Intel. But even AMD doesn't gain and might lose performance from adding more. Heck, you won't find the 7950X in the leadership position on very many games (if any). It is close, but usually loses out to CPUs with more power per core, bigger cache, etc.

If you want Intel to have more cores, which are efficient at lower power each, well that is their E core.

 

[HoveringStyle]

My point is that the the uplift over non-LP gracemont must be on the order of 20% for int and 50% for fp in Specint, adroc's fud notwithstanding.

Forgot to mention that intel state's on average LP gracemont IPC is down only ~5% with non-LP.

Using the SPEC2017 results in this Geekerwan video (8:15-9:40) and Intel's claimed increases, Skymont's IPC in LNL is 21% and 71% higher in int and fp respectively than RPL-S Gracemont and 30% and 73% higher than RPL-H Gracemont.

Mobile skus have lower IPC, for example, when compared to its appropriate mobile counterpart, RWC saw no IPC regression.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Intel Lunar Lake Technical Deep Dive - So many Revolutions in One Chip

E-core looks great on paper.

Even a CPU with only Skymont cores would be strong.

P.S. I am kinda more excited about Lunar Lake than Strix.

 

[ondma]

AMD has a more power efficient big core, and a different TDP, so their optimum number of big cores is different than Intel. But even AMD doesn't gain and might lose performance from adding more. Heck, you won't find the 7950X in the leadership position on very many games (if any). It is close, but usually loses out to CPUs with more power per core, bigger cache, etc.

If you want Intel to have more cores, which are efficient at lower power each, well that is their E core.

I thought that was supposed to be Arrow Lake/Lion Cove (new architecture on leading edge process (which turned out to be TSMC!!))

Note: I dont mean to sound like an intel hater, there are plenty of those in this forum already. I would love to see ARL kick butt vs Zen 5. I am somewhat hopeful after these latest leaks that it will at least be competitive (if late vs Zen 5), but remain skeptical since early leaks were so pessimistic. I just get tired of Intel proclaiming all these gains when they cant seem to catch up to AMD in core design and efficiency.

 

[H433x0n]

I thought that was supposed to be Arrow Lake/Lion Cove (new architecture on leading edge process (which turned out to be TSMC!!))

They’re not having issues competing with TSMC leading edge processes. Look at the Sierra Forest benchmarks that uses only Intel silicon taking the lead for x86 efficiency in the 250W TDP range against Bergamo / Genoa on TSMC silicon.

 

[CouncilorIrissa]

Huh?? AMD puts 16 "P" cores in 7950x and they seem to work just fine, and at much lower power than Intel 8+16 which is required to give similar MT performance.

AMD's "P" cores are somewhere in-between Golden Cove and Gracemont. Skymont is straight up larger than Z4 is a number of aspects.

 

[invisible_city]

In two years,
-P core Intel got 14% gains
-P core AMD got 16% gains
-E core Intel got 50% gains

Three years of 14%: 48%
Three years of 16%: 56%

Skylake was late 2015. So it took the Intel P core team 9 years to deliver 60% gains. E core team did it in two.

Conclusion 1: Three times two year gains of P cores delivered in 2 years. Feast on that. I had a good feeling the E core team will make a breakout someday.
Conclulsion 2: 50% is Bulldozer to Zen level gains. Unlike Bulldozer though Gracemont was pretty good already.

Yeah skymont is wild and the biggest sign that Intel is alive and going to make a comeback. May the tendies print

 

[eek2121]

This generation x86 was kinda disappointing, eh?

Zen5 = 16% IPC, iso clock
LNL P-core = 14% IPC, clock regression (?)

1. Wait for reviews. The situation with Zen 5 is a lot more interesting than an average. Front end changes are always fun. Some applications aren’t much faster, if at all, others get completely blown up. Don’t misunderstand, if AMD says 16%, that is the average, but there are going to be some inter things north of that average. wait for reviews.

2. Arrow Lake will have a different performance profile from Lunar Lake. so comparisons are meaningless. Skymont is definitely steeling the show, however.

Hero is here lol

similar conclusion. FSP too low for FrameGen on, but too high for FG off

13700k@5.6g, avg 181fps
9900x , avg 229fps

https://twitter.com/x/status/1798002917666079160

See above.

Back in Gracemont days, Intel said it was approximately like Skylake without giving explicit figures. We found out that the FP is substantially slower(66% advantage for Golden Cove, meaning Skylake is likely 20% or so faster), and even in Integer it wasn't fully up to par.

Now they are saying it'll outright outperform Raptor Cove.

Yes, it is a beast.

Huh?? AMD puts 16 "P" cores in 7950x and they seem to work just fine, and at much lower power than Intel 8+16 which is required to give similar MT performance.

Not anymore, things are changing. AMD will have to figure it out because they are going to get clobbered in terms of performance. I figured Intel was going to over perform with skymont based on what was leaked. Now I wonder if they will even lead single core performance.

I am expecting a good 15-20% total single core uplift (ipc + clocks) over Raptor Lake. Multicore is going to come down to what process gets used due to power limits. The more power efficient the process is, the better the performance. We could see Intel lead AMD by a substantial amount here, but they are also (allegedly) pulling back power limits to be similar to AMD’s limits, so who knows?

 

[poke01]

1. Wait for reviews. The situation with Zen 5 is a lot more interesting than an average. Front end changes are always fun. Some applications aren’t much faster, if at all, others get completely blown up. Don’t misunderstand, if AMD says 16%, that is the average, but there are going to be some inter things north of that average. wait for reviews.

Those applications that are faster make use of AVX-512. It’s not hard to get. Wasn’t Zen5 supposed to the core everyone was supposed to catch up to…

 

[Hitman928]

I am expecting a good 15-20% total single core uplift (ipc + clocks) over Raptor Lake. Multicore is going to come down to what process gets used due to power limits. The more power efficient the process is, the better the performance. We could see Intel lead AMD by a substantial amount here, but they are also (allegedly) pulling back power limits to be similar to AMD’s limits, so who knows?

You’re expecting ARL to clock higher than RPL-R?

 

[dullard]

I thought that was supposed to be Arrow Lake/Lion Cove (new architecture on leading edge process (which turned out to be TSMC!!))

That isn't the goal with the P cores, and likely never will be. The P cores are to have a single task done ASAP at the cost of high power. Move to a new architecture, or process and the goal is still the same: complete a single task ASAP at the cost of high power. The P cores are for when you want something very responsive and fluid. But, you can't have large numbers of cores all doing tasks at the cost of high power. There is no free lunch. With 8 P cores, running at 125 W, each gets ~15.6 W. Those P cores can clock a lot faster than 16 P cores each with only ~7.8 W. No matter the architecture or process, when you split your power budget up amongst more and more cores, each core gets less and less to work with.

The E cores are designed to be the workhorses that you can spam in large numbers to do grunt work. The real issue was when the P/E core was first released, the E cores were clocked too high and there were too few of them. The result was that the first E cores were neither that efficient nor that good at grunt work. So, people got the whole idea of P and E cores backwards in their mind thinking that P cores were for the grunt work. You have to switch your mindset. You want more E cores for more work done.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

IGP performance also doesn't look bad.

Higher than MTL-H, which has 7-8 Xe cores.

 

[desrever]

They’re not having issues competing with TSMC leading edge processes. Look at the Sierra Forest benchmarks that uses only Intel silicon taking the lead for x86 efficiency in the 250W TDP range against Bergamo / Genoa on TSMC silicon.

They are still 19% behind on perf/watt using Intel 3 vs Bergamo using TSMC N5:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1d7qcwj/intel_xeon_6780e_xeon_6766e_144core_performance

 

[invisible_city]

IGP performance also doesn't look bad.

Higher than MTL-H, which has 7-8 Xe cores.

Battlemage in general sounds excellent. Watch this from Tom Patterson:

starting at 2:20

 

[DavidC1]

Using the SPEC2017 results in this Geekerwan video (8:15-9:40) and Intel's claimed increases, Skymont's IPC in LNL is 21% and 71% higher in int and fp respectively than RPL-S Gracemont and 30% and 73% higher than RPL-H Gracemont.

It's higher than 21% in Int, but lower than 71% in FP. You got the calculations wrong.

They are still 19% behind on perf/watt using Intel 3 vs Bergamo using TSMC N5:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1d7qcwj/intel_xeon_6780e_xeon_6766e_144core_performance

Take Skymont, add a few % because it'll be Darkmont, on 18A and 176 cores for -SP and 288 cores for -AP, on Foveros Omni interconnect. Make conclusions.

"Undisputed performance leadership by 2025"

 

[eek2121]

You’re expecting ARL to clock higher than RPL-R?

No, but I am expecting single core clocks to be nearly the same. Multicore clocks may regress, but going from Intel 7 to N3 or Intel 20A will be a substantial improvement.

 

[invisible_city]

They are still 19% behind on perf/watt using Intel 3 vs Bergamo using TSMC N5:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1d7qcwj/intel_xeon_6780e_xeon_6766e_144core_performance

You don’t understand what perf/watt means. They are far ahead of bergamo in terms of perf/watt, just behind by 20% in performance.

Intel Xeon 6780E / Xeon 6766E 144-Core Performance Benchmarks Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Around 28 geo mean/watt for SRF, 24 for Bergamo, eyeballing mean power use at 150 for SRF and 250 for bergamo, top parts each.

“The power efficiency story of the Xeon 6700E series is a great one and allows Intel to regain competitiveness on that front and in a number of cases outperforming 4th Gen EPYC in performance-per-Watt for both Genoa(X) and Bergamo”

This is with Crestmont which is slow and hot compared to Skymont, and with a mixture of HPC workloads which Zen5 is optimized for and Crestmont is not

 

[DavidC1]

Around 28 geo mean/watt for SRF, 21 for Bergamo, eyeballing mean power use at 150 for SRF and 250 for bergamo, top parts each.

You are on a computer, desktop/laptop or smartphone. Use a calculator. Did you not read cutting edge research goes through heroic efforts for 0.5-1% now? Getting 35% when it's 40% is not a small difference.

Here, I will do it for you:
-13 geo mean/watt for Xeon 6780(4233/321)
-15.7 geo mean/watt for EPYC 9754(5905/375)

 

[StinkyPinky]

Intel Lunar Lake Technical Deep Dive - So many Revolutions in One Chip

E-core looks great on paper.

Even a CPU with only Skymont cores would be strong.

P.S. I am kinda more excited about Lunar Lake than Strix.

Imagine a hypothetical CPU with only 4 Skymont cores in a budget school laptop. Would run nicely and last forever.

I guess the design of the CPU prevents that but it's an interesting thought experiment.

 

[invisible_city]

You are on a computer, desktop/laptop or smartphone. Use a Smartphone. Did you not read cutting edge research goes through heroic efforts for 0.5-1% now? Getting 35% when it's 40% is not a small difference.

I’m a scientist, we round to the nearest order of magnitude . I don’t care about 1%.

 

[DavidC1]

I’m a scientist, we round to the nearest order of magnitude . I don’t care about 1%.

If you are a CPU enthusiast you should.

I am pretty sure Zen 5 people wanted 20% not 16%. But you are saying 20% and 30% is the same thing.

That makes me doubt your claims.

Here, I will do it for you:
-13 geo mean/watt for Xeon 6780(4233/321)
-15.7 geo mean/watt for EPYC 9754(5905/375)

You claimed 28 for SRF and 21 for EPYC. Again, I doubt your claims, or do a much better job.

 

[desrever]

You don’t understand what perf/watt means. They are far ahead of bergamo in terms of perf/watt, just behind by 20% in performance.

Intel Xeon 6780E / Xeon 6766E 144-Core Performance Benchmarks Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

Around 28 geo mean/watt for SRF, 24 for Bergamo, eyeballing mean power use at 150 for SRF and 250 for bergamo, top parts each.

“The power efficiency story of the Xeon 6700E series is a great one and allows Intel to regain competitiveness on that front and in a number of cases outperforming 4th Gen EPYC in performance-per-Watt for both Genoa(X) and Bergamo”

This is with Crestmont which is slow and hot compared to Skymont, and with a mixture of HPC workloads which Zen5 is optimized for and Crestmont is not

You don't seem to not understand how it work.

"The dual Xeon 6780E configuration was at 85% the power consumption on average as AMD's flagship Bergamo processor, the EPYC 9754"

While the performance is only 73% as much as the EPYC 9754:

https://phoronix.com/benchmark/result/intel-xeon-6766e-xeon-6780e-sierra-forest-xeon-6-benchmarks/geometric-mean-of-all-test-results-result-composite-ix6x6sfx6b.svgz

Like how do you mess up this hard? Just look at the chart ffs.

 

[Det0x]

I am expecting a good 15-20% total single core uplift (ipc + clocks) over Raptor Lake

No, but I am expecting single core clocks to be nearly the same. Multicore clocks may regress, but going from Intel 7 to N3 or Intel 20A will be a substantial improvement.

Going by the latest leak from wccftech (i know)

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K “Arrow Lake” Desktop CPU Rumored To Clock Around 5.5 GHz​

Thats a 9% or 13% clockspeed deficit depending on if you compare against 14900K or the KS, that you need to overcome with purely IPC

• For the 285K to reach +20% ST performance over 13900K they need a IPC increase of ~31%
• For the 285k to reach +20% ST performance over 13900KS they need a IPC increase of ~35%

*edit*

If the 285k runs at 5.7ghz ST:

• ..then it need a IPC increase of ~26% to reach the 14900K +20%
• ...then it need a IPC increase of ~30% to reach the 14900KS +20%