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.

 

[cannedlake240]

Hope they release Arrow Lake with bugs fixed on 18A in six months and max boost 6 GHz to get consumer and investor confidence back. They can just increment the model numbers by 5 like 250K, 270K and 290K.

Sadly no company, let alone intel can design and ship in 6 months. That's what Nova lake is, fixed memory latency, new cores potential stacked L3 cache, but that'll take another 2 years

 

[LightningZ71]

Very good work, but this part misses the plot. Averaging the HT benefit across active threads doesn't make much sense. In reality, almost all situations that benefit from HT will be all-core loads. So, ARL could have had up to 13.5% more multi-core performance.

Going from statements for earlier implementations of HT, it adds around 5% to the core size. With 4.53 mm² for Lion Cove, that's just +1.812 mm² for 8 P-cores. or a bit more than one Skymont E-core. The Compute tile would have been just 1.6% bigger, for up to 13.5% more performance. Performance-wise, that should still have been a no-brainer.

The reasons could be in unified core architecture across Lunar and Arrow Lake, and in preparation for unifying P- and E-cores in upcoming generations.

Do you know what ALSO would have increase MT performance by a MUCH greater degree without sacrificing ANY ST performance while costing around the same increase in die space?

Going from 8/16-24 to 6/24-30. 6 P cores and 24 E cores. That would give you significantly more MT performance as Skymont cores are a much bigger increase in throughput than HT threads on a P core. You'd have gotten 6 of those in addition to the 2 that would effectively replace the missing P cores. And remember, those 2 HT threads share that P core, so it would become effectively 2 cores with 60-65% of the performance of one P core.

There's no world where adding footprint to the existing P cores for HT is better than replacing two P cores with E core clusters.

 

[Kepler_L2]

ARL is a stumble of sorts. The question is if it is a stumble on the way down or the way up. I wonder if there is a sense of excitement at Intel, young and old really smart people passionate to do great things on the edge of current technology? Or it is just full of people grinding away and feeling like cogs in a machine that doesn't care about them with a room full of executives figuring out how to get the remaining gold off of the ship before it sinks?

Anecdotal but from I have heard old veterans at Intel are retiring early and younger engineers are jumping ship to AMD/NVIDIA/Apple/Qualcomm.

 

[gaav87]

Im just gonna leave this here (tested with 7900xtx):

 

[Thunder 57]

The Intel employees on reddit talk about all of the experienced and talented taking the buyouts or going through the motions while they actively look for work elsewhere. Rock bottom morale. How the pay was not competitive when they took the job, but the perks (most of which have been taken away) were what made it worth working there.

A few that thought they were safe because they work at the Hillsboro campus. They were unfortunately quite wrong. That was 4-8 weeks ago I read those posts on r/Intel, r/hardware, and maybe one or 2 other subs.

It's pretty bad when the free fruit perk is taken away.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It's pretty bad when the free fruit perk is taken away.

They had free coffee and snacks bar. One employee said he could walk 2 minutes from his desk, grab some coffee and snacks, and go back to his workflow recharged. He was obviously depressed they took that from him.

Im just gonna leave this here (tested with 7900xtx):
View attachment 110667

We need to see the testing methodology. AMD have inflated numbers on everything of late, so can't trust AMDumb marketing. I speculated already they simply used 24H2, but the difference would probably be even larger?

 

[511]

They skipped RPL wonder why 🙄

 

[igor_kavinski]

They skipped RPL wonder why 🙄

Because it's ancient history and rusting away in peace

 

[moinmoin]

we can expect more nonsense like this from TSMC. They're just attacking the weakest link in the chain.

Keep in mind that Morris Chang does not equal TSMC. While he is the founder and outspoken, he hasn't been in an official position at TSMC since 2018. He may still be close to the leadership there, but that doesn't make him TSMC's official mouthpiece. Furthermore he's a billionaire and 93 years old, so chances are he's living in an alternate dimension far from everyday reality of commoners anyway. 😜

 

[Meteor Late]

Im just gonna leave this here (tested with 7900xtx):
View attachment 110667

In HWU testing, 7800X3D is already 20% faster than 285K, though, admittedly with RTX 4090. So unless the testing is radically different, this is really not good news for 9800X3D if these numbers are true. Many people expect like 10% gaming delta on average between 7800X3D and 9800X3D and that's probably not going to happen.

 

[gdansk]

In HWU testing, 7800X3D is already 20% faster than 285K, though, admittedly with RTX 4090. So unless the testing is radically different, this is really not good news for 9800X3D if these numbers are true.

Different games, different GPUs. I'm not sure it is comparable. It should be 4% more frequency with the Zen 5% boost so about 8% more seems about right.

 

[511]

Because it's ancient history and rusting away in peace

I am pretty sure if you put it in graph it will win in a couple of games but the ridiculous Power Consumption had to go

 

[Meteor Late]

Different games, different GPUs. I'm not sure it is comparable. It should be 4% more frequency with the Zen 5% boost so about 8% more seems about right.

Zen 5 in games was more like 3% not 5% on average. And the frequency increase doesn't scale in many games, because they are more cache and memory bound. So most likely we will have a true Zen5% instead of the current Zen5(3)%.

 

[gdansk]

And the frequency increase doesn't scale in many games

lol. If you say so...

 

[Hulk]

Anecdotal but from I have heard old veterans at Intel are retiring early and younger engineers are jumping ship to AMD/NVIDIA/Apple/Qualcomm.

Not good.

In the '80's when Chrysler was failing my dad bought one Chysler New Yorker after another, I think 3 of them. They were terrible but he wanted to support the Chrysler that he knew growing up. Unfortunately that company didn't exist.

I'm pretty sure that's why I keep buying Intel. My heart remembers the Intel from growing up but my brain is well aware that company is gone.

 

[adroc_thurston]

I have heard old veterans at Intel are retiring early

They're being retired. VSP and all.

 

[Hulk]

Nutty noob idea.

Instead of going to TMSC with ARL I wonder if Intel considered a giant monolithic ARL core on Intel 7? If clocks were lower efficiency would have been okay and memory issues might be mitigated. Expense of the giant core possibily offset by staying with in-house fabs? Problem is such a beast would be admitting out in the open that they are beat with process, which is of course is what they did by going hybrid but found a way to hide that fact with the hybrid architecture.

Now I really know why Intel kept cranking up the clock on Raptor and why we had a Raptor Refresh. They are obviously tapped out of cutting edge tech that outperforms the competition in the real world, not just in Intel charts. Not taped out, tapped out.

 

[Hulk]

Would this be a decent option if I were to switch teams? I'm staying with mATX due to the fact that I have a case I really like that fits under my desk.

TUF GAMING B650M-PLUS WIFIï½Motherboardsï½ASUS USA

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Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5 memory is designed for ultra-high overclocked performance on DDR5-enabled AMD platforms. Featuring AMD EXPO overclocking technology for easy memory overclocking on supported AMD platforms, the Trident Z5 Neo RGB series is the ideal choice for building high-performance...

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You see, my 1.3V underclock on my 14900K is not stable anymore so I downloaded the Intel microcode BIOS update. Yeah it's stable now but taking in quite a lot of volts and I've lost 300-400MHz at the same 200W I used to run at.
I think I'm done with Raptor Lake. I want to try a 9950X.

Probably throw a 7800XT or 4700 GPU in there as well. I don't game much but like the GPU power for other tasks.

 

[Saylick]

Nutty noob idea.

Instead of going to TMSC with ARL I wonder if Intel considered a giant monolithic ARL core on Intel 7? If clocks were lower efficiency would have been okay and memory issues might be mitigated. Expense of the giant core possibily offset by staying with in-house fabs? Problem is such a beast would be admitting out in the open that they are beat with process, which is of course is what they did by going hybrid but found a way to hide that fact with the hybrid architecture.

Now I really know why Intel kept cranking up the clock on Raptor and why we had a Raptor Refresh. They are obviously tapped out of cutting edge tech that outperforms the competition in the real world, not just in Intel charts. Not taped out, tapped out.

intel 7 is probably a little too old, but they maybe could’ve used Intel 3?

 

[Kocicak]

Im just gonna leave this here (tested with 7900xtx):
View attachment 110667

Fair comparison would be against Intels best in the same price range, that is 14700K.

Why are they testing against gaming lame duck?!

 

[Hulk]

intel 7 is probably a little too old, but they maybe could’ve used Intel 3?

That's true. Just thinking they have the high clocks and probably good yields in Intel 7.
Honestly even Raptor Cove paired with Skymont on monolithic might have been a better option than ARL as we have it now. ST would have remained the same but MT would have gone through the roof with just a little larger die area.

 

[igor_kavinski]

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TUF GAMING B650M-PLUS WIFI is equipped with outstanding features, including 6-layer PCB design, DDR5, PCIe 5.0 M.2 support, Realtek 2.5Gb Ethernet, Vertical M.2 slot (Key E), rear USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C®, front USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C®, BIOS FlashBackâ¢, DisplayPort/HDMI, USB4® (Thunderbolt⢠4)...

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F5-6400J3239G16GX2-TZ5NRW - Overview - G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd.

Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5 memory is designed for ultra-high overclocked performance on DDR5-enabled AMD platforms. Featuring AMD EXPO overclocking technology for easy memory overclocking on supported AMD platforms, the Trident Z5 Neo RGB series is the ideal choice for building high-performance...

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I don't mind that mobo.

For RAM, I think this is better: https://www.gskill.com/product/165/390/1693903297/F5-6400J3239F24GX2-TZ5NRW

 

[Kocicak]

Would this be a decent option if I were to switch teams?

Do not switch teams now, wait for the truly new AM5 platform and then decide. There will be far better options from both companies the next year.

 

[cannedlake240]

That's true. Just thinking they have the high clocks and probably good yields in Intel 7.
Honestly even Raptor Cove paired with Skymont on monolithic might have been a better option than ARL as we have it now. ST would have remained the same but MT would have gone through the roof with just a little larger die area.

Redwood, raptor aren't node portable

 

[gdansk]

There will be far better options from both companies the next year.

Doubtful.