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.

 

[DrMrLordX]

For consumers it's nice. For Intel folk... debatable.

Ouch. And after Gelsinger went to so much trouble to bring people in with him, including some old hands. Interesting that the fab research teams are unaffected.

Thanks for clarifying the TigerLake comment. I had dismissed it mentally as non-sequitur or a typo since TigerLake is no match for Cezanne except in price. Much less Phoenix. But if Intel is clogging retail space with discounted TigerLake then that may make it difficult for anyone else to gain markershare in mobile.

 

[tamz_msc]

Ouch. And after Gelsinger went to so much trouble to bring people in with him, including some old hands. Interesting that the fab research teams are unaffected.

Thanks for clarifying the TigerLake comment. I had dismissed it mentally as non-sequitur or a typo since TigerLake is no match for Cezanne except in price. Much less Phoenix. But if Intel is clogging retail space with discounted TigerLake then that may make it difficult for anyone else to gain markershare in mobile.

Tiger Lake H was better than Cezanne H in gaming laptops, you know, for gaming. And Cezanne U was nonexistent until Barcelo refresh came along. That's why Tiger Lake flooded the market.

 

[IEC]

I have a laptop (really, a DTR) with a Tiger Lake 11800H + RTX 3060. I bought it due to it being more powerful than the AMD equivalents at the time. Battery life blows, though. And performance when on battery also takes a steep hit versus the competitor... factors which did not matter to me due to it rarely being used on battery.

 

[coercitiv]

And Cezanne U was nonexistent until Barcelo refresh came along.

And yet the Cezanne U laptop I bought last summer is, all things considered, the best and cheapest laptop I have ever owned. All other units were Intel based. In the past I used to spend $1000+ for similar build quality, now I spent less than $500 (both expressed as equivalent US prices). I was really close in buying a TGL U laptop though, but Asus managed to screw up their product using unnecessary design gimmicks. A pity, they should know better. Prices between the units were comparable.

 

[jpiniero]

Tiger Lake H was better than Cezanne H in gaming laptops, you know, for gaming. And Cezanne U was nonexistent until Barcelo refresh came along. That's why Tiger Lake flooded the market.

To be clear, I am talking about the 4 core die. The 8 core die is already in the EOL process.

As it pertains to the current thread, Meteor Lake could see the same fate. It's kind of the Catch-22 with going with TSMC.

 

[tamz_msc]

And yet the Cezanne U laptop I bought last summer is, all things considered, the best and cheapest laptop I have ever owned. All other units were Intel based. In the past I used to spend $1000+ for similar build quality, now I spent less than $500 (both expressed as equivalent US prices). I was really close in buying a TGL U laptop though, but Asus managed to screw up their product using unnecessary design gimmicks. A pity, they should know better. Prices between the units were comparable.

I don't think your purchase history is of any significance in trying to explain the glut of TGL products being available in the market.

 

[coercitiv]

I don't think your purchase history is of any significance in trying to explain the glut of TGL products being available in the market.

Neither was your observation about the low availability of Cezanne U prior to Barcelo, zero significance relative to the glut of TGL products in the market.

 

[tamz_msc]

Neither was your observation about the low availability of Cezanne U prior to Barcelo, zero significance relative to the glut of TGL products in the market.

Of course it was. Low availability = more competition to get availability = offering alternatives by OEMs who fail to secure availability.

Case in point: HP and Dell didn't have a single Cezanne-U product in my country, they all shipped Barcelo. Asus and Lenovo did.

 

[Exist50]

MLID becoming more realistic with the claimed IPC improvements in Meteor Lake? Now he says MTL gains "up to" 10% over RPL-R with some tests in the mid single digits range. It's more realistic right?

More realistic still doesn't make it remotely on target. And to state the obvious, he's been BSing the whole time, and continues to do so.

As for Arrow Lake he says that both mobile and desktop will launch in Q4 2024. Mobile uses 20A whereas desktop uses TSMC N3+N3E.

Did he say N3 or N3B? Just want to clarify because those aren't exactly the same. Either way, the claim is nonsense. Intel's in no position to support two nodes like that.

I believe we will see bigger gains. The lead architect last year told "in the coming years you will see Raptor Lake and Meteor Lake and then you will see bigger and bigger jumps"

Trust their word about as much as marketing, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Exist50]

I mean everyone (especially the people working there) should hope this rumor is false, but if it is...
I do hope they don't cut out engineers and instead more of the bloated management I hear often when people talk about Intel.

I can't confirm anything for the client side, at least not yet, nor how it translates into layoffs percentages, but DCAI did indeed get a ~10% budget cut, on top of the previous budget cuts/layoffs. Heard they have already started with a few hundred (engineer) layoffs in AXG as of a few weeks ago. Not sure if those even count towards this new budget (even worse if they don't), but that number will have to grow well into the thousands to match that budget.

I did hear the client side had "extreme" (exact wording) roadmap cuts, but not sure about the specifics. No doubt they will be laying off hundreds to thousands as well.

 

[Geddagod]

I can't confirm anything for the client side, at least not yet, nor how it translates into layoffs percentages, but DCAI did indeed get a ~10% budget cut, on top of the previous budget cuts/layoffs. Heard they have already started with a few hundred (engineer) layoffs in AXG as of a few weeks ago. Not sure if those even count towards this new budget (even worse if they don't), but that number will have to grow well into the thousands to match that budget.

I did hear the client side had "extreme" (exact wording) roadmap cuts, but not sure about the specifics. No doubt they will be laying off hundreds to thousands as well.

Disappointing. Hopefully it's cuts on how many different types of dies they make, rather than the specifics of the actual products themselves.
I mean, if stuff like ADM gets cut from ARL, or they cut core counts on future products (cough 8+32 ARL leak cough) it would be terrible imo

 

[mikk]

More realistic still doesn't make it remotely on target. And to state the obvious, he's been BSing the whole time, and continues to do so.

Did he say N3 or N3B? Just want to clarify because those aren't exactly the same. Either way, the claim is nonsense. Intel's in no position to support two nodes like that.

Trust their word about as much as marketing, as far as I'm concerned.

He did say N3....he never mentioned N3B. You don't expect a bigger gain with Arrow Lake? You think it will come with another low IPC increase over Meteor Lake?

 

[Exist50]

You don't expect a bigger gain with Arrow Lake? You think it will come with another low IPC increase over Meteor Lake?

Oh it will be better than RWC, but that's not exactly saying much. I'm expecting more like Intel's typical gains in the 10-20% ballpark, rather than 30%+. Though if we're comparing to MTL, they should get a frequency boost as well.

 

[msj10]

If RWC+ has 10-12% more performance than RWC like Pat Gelsinger said then LNC will be much higher than that.

 

[Geddagod]

If RWC+ has 10-12% more performance than RWC like Pat Gelsinger said then LNC will be much higher than that.

whispers maybe it's Lion Cove hmmmm
If Pat was talking about the core as in the core in the actual silicon and not the core vs core, node agnostically, then I think it's likely most of that 10-12% gain came from the node jump. Intel 3 to Intel 4 perf/watt gain is essentially the same as a standard node jump, and it's likely the perf/watt gain is going to be reflected in GNR much more than previous nodes due to the fact that since the core count is so high, each individual core is going to be clocked lower.

 

[msj10]

whispers maybe it's Lion Cove hmmmm
If Pat was talking about the core as in the core in the actual silicon and not the core vs core, node agnostically, then I think it's likely most of that 10-12% gain came from the node jump. Intel 3 to Intel 4 perf/watt gain is essentially the same as a standard node jump, and it's likely the perf/watt gain is going to be reflected in GNR much more than previous nodes due to the fact that since the core count is so high, each individual core is going to be clocked lower.

he specifically mentioned that these 10-12% are on top of the 18% they get from the node jump

 

[Geddagod]

he specifically mentioned that these 10-12% are on top of the 18% they get from the node jump

Huh you're right (I think). Ye I think it's getting more and more likely you are looking at LNC here. 10-12% is way too high for a "+" arch. At that point you are just reworking the core for a new arch. To put it into perspective, GLC is 15% better than ICL in server, LNC server being 10-12% better than RWC is server is a bit disappointing but plausible.

 

[soresu]

For consumers it's nice. For Intel folk... debatable.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1655048861084450816

This makes a lot of sense given the known falloff in the PC markets recently.

Interesting to see it expressed in Intel so prominently.

 

[Hulk]

I'm rumored out. I need some real, verified information from the source!

 

[msj10]

Huh you're right (I think). Ye I think it's getting more and more likely you are looking at LNC here. 10-12% is way too high for a "+" arch. At that point you are just reworking the core for a new arch. To put it into perspective, GLC is 15% better than ICL in server, LNC server being 10-12% better than RWC is server is a bit disappointing but plausible.

maybe RWC+ is some kind of a RWC/LNC hybrid, they could have backported some of LNC features into it so it might not be as good as the final LNC we will see in LNL and ARL but it still gets a decent improvement but idk if something like that is possible.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Tiger Lake H was better than Cezanne H in gaming laptops, you know, for gaming.

Eh? Maybe. It definitely was no match for Rembrandt in any case. And Rembrandt is in surplus mode as we speak. Intel isn't glutting the market with 4c Tiger Lake to compete performance-wise with Rembrandt, or even Cezanne.

 

[eek2121]

Eh? Maybe. It definitely was no match for Rembrandt in any case. And Rembrandt is in surplus mode as we speak. Intel isn't glutting the market with 4c Tiger Lake to compete performance-wise with Rembrandt, or even Cezanne.

Tiger Lake was pretty close to Zen 3 in terms of IPC. Rembrandt does have the lead for most workloads and for power consumption, but the lead isn’t as big as you might think. Tiger Lake also had AVX-512. Rembrandt is on a superior process, so it has more room to stretch it’s legs.

Tiger Lake could have really shined for Intel if 10nm had worked out better. I was honestly surprised Intel didn’t shrink Tiger Lake and increase the core count to 10 cores while bumping frequencies for 12th gen, and I am surprised they are abandoning it so quickly.

IMO it was the closest Intel came to a balance of per/watt. Alder Lake blew everything up in terms of power consumption.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I was honestly surprised Intel didn’t shrink Tiger Lake and increase the core count to 10 cores while bumping frequencies for 12th gen, and I am surprised they are abandoning it so quickly.

They couldn't contain their excitement to share E-cores with the world. Even with E-cores onboard, they managed to bungle up 12th gen mobile's power consumption. Only Intel can do that

They had another chance to deliver ADL-N with Intel 4 and take over the thin and light laptop market by storm with 20 hour battery life. Nope. Sensible thinking is outlawed in their offices.

 

[Ajay]

You are only fooling yourself if you believe that.

They've been doing it from day one in the Chromebook market.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that so few ARM based Chromebooks exist by comparison?

The reason is very simple - Intel priced most of the ARM vendors out of the market.

They might not be pricing as aggressively in periods where no ARM vendors are making an effort, but you can bet that they are doing it the moment Qualcomm or Mediatek start making announcements to that effect.

This is especially obvious given the fact that Chrome OS supports Android apps which overwhelmingly work better on ARM CPUs due to ARM's near total dominance of the Android device market.

Unless I misunderstood the recent quarterly report, there was no contra revenue. Intel did cut ASPs drastically in many areas, but that’s not quite the same, IMHO.

 

[soresu]

Intel did cut ASPs drastically in many areas, but that’s not quite the same, IMHO

Something tells me that opinions might differ among the major shareholders 😆🤑