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.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

That's PTL-H.

I know, but I don't think It will be that efficient.

There isn't an S14 Zenbook with Strix.

But there is S16 Zenbook. The same thing just in a bigger chassis.

 

[adroc_thurston]

I don't think It will be that efficient.

It inherits the uncore but not the other things. So less, but still.

just in a bigger chassis.

Yes, "things that cost more money, part 243".

 

[cannedlake240]

money-spending options

So apple just bought their way to fame \s

 

[adroc_thurston]

So apple just bought their way to fame \s

Well, yeah. But they sell exclusively premium products so BOM increments impact them a lot less.

 

[Nothingness]

How did you come to the conclusion that I think so? I have never written this anywhere. I had in mind the discussion with David C1, who starts a given topic and then gives his arguments in a convoluted way, which are not the answer. That's all. He sees Zen5 as a revolution (it is a revolution), which I don't deny, but in LionCove he sees only expansion. Discussion with him is biased, non-technical and non-substantive.

My apologies, I misunderstood you 😀

The predictor in Zen5 is an idea from 30 years ago, but only now its technical implementation makes sense (transistor packing and complexity)

The TAGE predictor was first used by Intel in Haswell, the first working sample of which was presented in 2011.

TAGE was presented around 2005. And as far I know AMD has been using it since Zen2.

Haswell might have used it earlier because Seznec worked for them for some years; but the initial publication made it clear the algorithm would not be patented and could be freely used (it was a rule of the bpred tournament), so everyone could use it

Zen5 uses other old algorithms beyond TAGE, as you pointed out. Most modern high perf CPU have several algorithms running in parallel using more or less complex functions to choose the better one.

As I often say, branch prediction is often the most complex part of a CPU (along with data prefetch).

 

[AMDK11]

An interesting fact about LionCove in LunarLake is that it can predict 3-4 branches per cycle compared to 2-3 in GoldenCove, but apparently it is inferior to GoldenCove in some respects. We'll see what LionCove will show at ArrowLake. Intel claims that the PBU block is 8x larger than the one in RedwoodCove, so this is an interesting thing to analyze after the launch of ArrowLake.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

LNL has same MT throuhgput and efficency as a 6C/12T Phoenix 2 7540U, i would expect in a 1400€ laptop better MT perf and perf/Watt than laptops sold at 600-650€,
more than 2x the price just because of the GPU.?.

That s the magic of the marketing, actual numbers are not even considered, to the point that a CPU that should be in the sub 1000€ laptop market is accepted as being valuable at 1400€ if not 2000€.

Thanks for once again not answering my original question.

Laptops are not just a CPU(SoC, APU), yet you are only comparing It based on that and only in full nT on top of that, knowing full well how laptop prices don't reflect actual performance difference.

I am looking at that 7540U in a Lenovo Yoga 6 Slim and It costs 769€ and with only 16GB RAM.
BTW, that 7540U is also in a 1549 € business laptop, will you complain about It too?

What 2x price just because of the iGPU?
7540U's iGPU is useless, but even the CPU is weaker If you compare It at the same thread count.
What you are doing is comparing 8 threads vs 12 threads and complain how weak LNL is.
It's hilarious, because If I remember correctly, you were complaining how It was unfair comparing 8C Zen4 to 14C Meteor Lake, because MTL had an advantage in core count and thread count.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Yes, "things that cost more money, part 243".

Yet the smaller chassis is sold for more in most cases.

 

[MoistOintment]

LNL has same MT throuhgput and efficency as a 6C/12T Phoenix 2 7540U, i would expect in a 1400€ laptop better MT perf and perf/Watt than laptops sold at 600-650€,
more than 2x the price at same MT perf just because of the GPU.?.

That s the magic of the marketing, actual numbers are not even considered, to the point that a CPU that should be in the sub 1000€ laptop market is accepted as being valuable at 1400€ if not 2000€.

And Phoenix loses in ST.

Why are we sitting here pretending that nT benchmarks are the most important metric when shopping for a thin and light? My laptop use case, order of importance is:

ST > Battery Life in my workloads (mostly web apps and Office Suite) > weight > thickness > keyboard & trackpad quality > screen quality > webcam and microphone quality > speaker quality > then nT performance.

If your order of importance is place nT higher up the list (or at the top) then ARL or Strix is a better choice for you.

Realistically, there's 3 types of laptop buyers:

A) Performance is the most important metric. Once a sufficient level of battery has been reached, the more performance the better. Might not even care about battery life at all.

B) Battery life is the most important metric. Once a sufficient level of performance has been reached, more battery is always better. Workloads are fixed, lightweight tasks like Office and Web.

C) A decent balance of both. Wants a jack of all trade CPU that isn't necessarily the best in battery or performance, but strikes a good balance.

I am in group B. Apple M3 and LNL target group B.

You seem to be in either group A or C. Strix and ARL-H will target group C.
Strix Halo and ARL-HX will target group A.

I think it's important that we at least recognize that these 3 groups of buyers exist, and that the group we belong to isn't the only one. Then maybe we can stop this "LNL sucks because max performance R24 MT score divided by power drawn is the most important metric" discourse.

I mean, these LNL laptops, which supposedly suck in nT, outperform my desktop 3700X in nT by a decent margin and in ST by a large margin. And I don't feel nT constrained at all on my desktop and don't even plan to upgrade until Probably Zen 6 / Nova Lake.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Why are we sitting here pretending that nT benchmarks are the most important metric when shopping for a thin and light?

Because @Abwx must compare in a metric where AMD wins significantly and that one metric becomes the most important for him.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Yet the smaller chassis is sold for more in most cases.

No?

Strix Halo and ARL-HX will target group A.

Halo is a very own thing.
That's not how laptop segments are sliced anyway.

 

[Magio]

LNL has same MT throuhgput and efficency as a 6C/12T Phoenix 2 7540U, i would expect in a 1400€ laptop better MT perf and perf/Watt than laptops sold at 600-650€,
more than 2x the price at same MT perf just because of the GPU.?.

That s the magic of the marketing, actual numbers are not even considered, to the point that a CPU that should be in the sub 1000€ laptop market is accepted as being valuable at 1400€ if not 2000€.

Is there a reason besides thread derailment you're avoiding talking about GPU perf or ST perf or battery life thanks to the low power E cores or the other aspects that make LNL the best x86 platform yet for thin and lights?

Of course its low thread count disqualifies it from certain use cases, but it is absolutely leading edge in the aspects it targets.

 

[SiliconFly]

.

 

[MoistOintment]

No?

Halo is a very own thing.
That's not how laptop segments are sliced anyway.

Halo is up to 16 performance cores with chiplets. Definitely sacrifices battery life to get even more performance over standard Strix.

And of course that's how laptop SoCs are segmented. Just that Apple with the launch of M1 showed how much "battery life, ST, and good iGPU / accelerators are the most important to me" customers there are, and not everyone wants to sacrifice light task efficiency for more cores. There's a reason why we see the market settle around a U, H, and HX class. Different products for different customers. Most people look at this and see different brackets for different needs, rather than viewing them as bad, better, best.

 

[SiliconFly]

.

 

[Abwx]

Is there a reason besides thread derailment you're avoiding talking about GPU perf or ST perf or battery life thanks to the low power E cores or the other aspects that make LNL the best x86 platform yet for thin and lights?

Of course its low thread count disqualifies it from certain use cases, but it is absolutely leading edge in the aspects it targets.

GPU perfs it s not exceptional, not really better than the competion previous gen, and it s not like it can compensate for the low MT perfs, in ST no one wil notice the diference, you are manifying 10% as if it was 100%, and once there s two threads, wich is nothing, the ST perf will collapse by 35% if it s not set at 30-37W, hence why MT perf is that important.

 

[Abwx]

Because @Abwx must compare in a metric where AMD wins significantly and that one metric becomes the most important for him.

Cinebench is not indicative of real usage but it is indicative of throughput in MT,
if it s weak in CB it wil lbe weak as well in 7 Zip and whatever use 8 cores, reviews are done with clean OS that are not crippled by hundreds of low priority threads, that s the avantage of a lot of cores and SMT, all the background tasks impacts on responsiveness are neutered.

 

[controlflow]

GPU perfs it s not exceptional, not really better than the competion previous gen, and it s not like it can compensate for the low MT perfs, in ST no one wil notice the diference, you are manifying 10% as if it was 100%, and once there s two threads, wich is nothing, the ST perf will collapse by 35% if it s not set at 30-37W, hence why MT perf is that important.

LNL's iGPU is in general the best performance and most efficient iGPU in the non-Apple ecosystem

The lack of class leading nT performance is just not that important in this segment. I would argue that the faster ST performance of LNL would be felt much more often by users of an ultra portable than the nT advantage of Strix would be.

This doesn't even capture the fact that LNL has far higher efficiency at ultra low power situations thanks to how much further Skymont can scale down to low power compared to Strix.

I'm not saying that Strix is a bad product, but it is very clearly in a different segment than something like LNL. At least make an effort to be objective. The arguments you make are incredibly disingenuous. You cherry pick scenarios that are largely irrelevant in the ultra portable segment to suit your biased narrative.

 

[SiliconFly]

.

 

[Abwx]

This doesn't even capture the fact that LNL has far higher efficiency at ultra low power situations thanks to how much further Skymont can scale down to low power compared to Strix.

Look at the numbers at 15W, it s less efficient than a Hawk Point for the CPU part, let alone a 365, dunno from where you got your "far higher efficency at ultra low power", surely from some intel slide.

Edit : Actualy the 365@9W would roughly match the 288V@15W.

And since you re talking GPU :

Intel Core Ultra 7 258V trades blows with Ryzen Z1 Extreme in gaming handheld simulation

The Intel Lunar Lake laptops are here, and soon, MSI Claw 8 AI+ will debut as one of the first handhelds with the new Core Ultra 200 series. To see how well it may perform, ETA Prime has put the Core Ultra 7 258V against Ryzen Z1 Exterme in a gaming handheld simulation.

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[cebri1]

Look at the numbers at 15W, it s less efficient than a Hawk Point for the CPU part, let alone a 365, dunno from where you got your "far higher efficency at ultra low power", surely from some intel slide.

24T vs 8T. But any rational discussion with you is impossible.

Raw comparison :

• 288V: 55p/thread
• 370: 24p/thread

Ofc hard to compared because intel uses two different archs.

 

[SiliconFly]

.

 

[Abwx]

Still trying to compare efficiency using Cinebench Multi Core results... even after many here have clearly stated MT isn't that important in thin and lights??? 🤦‍♂️

You could use anything else that stress the CPU and it would be the same, 7 Zip or a Stockfish powered chess game , although for the later case you ll have 70% more chance to win a game against LNL.

 

[H433x0n]

You could use anything else that stress the CPU and it would be the same, 7 Zip or a Stockfish powered chess game , although for the later case you ll have 70% more chance to win a game against LNL.

Why is this such a sticking point? Nobody is buying LNL to render images.

It’s meant for battery life, web browsing, watching videos and office tasks. It’s also meant to be used an APU for handheld devices.

 

[Tup3x]

Why is this such a sticking point? Nobody is buying LNL to render images.

It’s meant for battery life, web browsing, watching videos and office tasks. It’s also meant to be used an APU for handheld devices.

It's not made by AMD. That's the reason. 🫠