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.

 

[511]

Isn't Nova Lake's CPU tile being fabbed at TSMC?

Yes and only CPU Tile

 

[Josh128]

ISP.

Which does what, exactly?

So ARC 140V gets ~4000 in TimeSpy. 70% gets us to 7000, meaning GTX 1080 levels. That's quite amazing, in a 28-35W power envelope including CPU.

Theres absolutely no way its hitting ~1080 (non-Ti) levels in actual real world gaming scenarios, just throwing that out there. Not even remotely close. Their own slides claim ~+50% over Lunar Lake. Lunar Lake is ~ Strix Point (being a little generous here) for real gaming fps. Strix Point is ~GTX 1050Ti for gaming. GTX 1080 is 2.5-3X faster than 1050Ti.

 

[dullard]

Which does what, exactly?

IPU = Image Processing Unit
ISP = Image Signal Processor

It does Auto Exposure:

• Aberration correction
• De-mosaic
• IR Contamination Reduction
• Multi-Exposure Merge (lets you see dim areas and bright areas in the same image)

Noise and Texture Processing:

• Spatial noise reduction
• Tone mapping
• Temporal noise reduction
• Sharpening

Color Processing:

• Color Correction
• Scaling
• Warping

Basically, it goes from three of these images (red, green, blue, but only green is shown) to this final image with in real-time.

 

[Josh128]

IPU = Image Processing Unit
ISP = Image Signal Processor

It does Auto Exposure:

• Aberration correction
• De-mosaic
• IR Contamination Reduction
• Multi-Exposure Merge (lets you see dim areas and bright areas in the same image)

Noise and Texture Processing:

• Spatial noise reduction
• Tone mapping
• Temporal noise reduction
• Sharpening

Color Processing:

• Color Correction
• Scaling
• Warping

Basically, it goes from three of these images (red, green, blue, but only green is shown) to this final image with in real-time.

View attachment 131774

But what is it used for, internal webcam image processing?

 

[dullard]

But what is it used for, internal webcam image processing?

Yes. Goes from the dull washed-out photos and webcam videos to something that looks more professional.

 

[RTX2080]

So ARC 140V gets ~4000 in TimeSpy. 70% gets us to 7000, meaning GTX 1080 levels. That's quite amazing, in a 28-35W power envelope including CPU.

Which does what, exactly?

Theres absolutely no way its hitting ~1080 (non-Ti) levels in actual real world gaming scenarios, just throwing that out there. Not even remotely close. Their own slides claim ~+50% over Lunar Lake. Lunar Lake is ~ Strix Point (being a little generous here) for real gaming fps. Strix Point is ~GTX 1050Ti for gaming. GTX 1080 is 2.5-3X faster than 1050Ti.

See the diagram below as a rumor:

Memory	TimeSpy
8533MT/s	62xx
9600MT/s	63xx

 

[511]

So let's be real here the HW might have the potential to match 1080 but it's not being fed enough to do so like mem bandwidth is a big factor.

 

[Josh128]

So let's be real here the HW might have the potential to match 1080 but it's not being fed enough to do so like mem bandwidth is a big factor.

And power draw. And A+ working drivers.

 

[511]

And power draw. And A+ working drivers.

Yup though it's N3E I doubt more than 50W is needed for the GPU alone to max it out for working drivers they drivers are in lot better state than they ever were I play games on my iGPU as well sometimes older sometimes newer.

 

[Meteor Late]

Is the lineup confirmed? I've seen mentions about Core Ultra X5 338H with 4+4+4 and 10 Xe, I find this the most interesting, should be much cheaper than the top three sku and still looks really good in the GPU department, the CPU core race in the laptop space I find it irrelevant too, that is more than enough core count to do pretty much everything, though the lack of HT sucks no doubt.

 

[dullard]

Is the lineup confirmed? I've seen mentions about Core Ultra X5 338H with 4+4+4 and 10 Xe, I find this the most interesting, should be much cheaper than the top three sku and still looks really good in the GPU department, the CPU core race in the laptop space I find it irrelevant too, that is more than enough core count to do pretty much everything, though the lack of HT sucks no doubt.

I don't think that they are anything but rumors at this point. It really depends on the distribution of bins that are actually found in mass production.

I personally have not been a fan of 4E cores. Implementation of software has been fairly poor on chips with just 4E cores. If I were in the Panther Lake target market (I'm not), then I would seriously look at chips that don't have 4E cores (I'd get either 0 of them or 8). But maybe I'm out-of-date with that now that things have changed.

Lack of HT isn't a big deal since we now have LP-E cores to handle that. Instead of slipping threads into down time on the P cores hoping to get 10% or maybe 20% performance, just give them full reign on LP-E cores to run as they please unhindered.

Another thing to consider is your IO needs. The 10 Xe and 12 Xe CPUs have far fewer PCIe lanes. The USB ports and/or drives will be limited on those laptops.

 

[511]

I don't think that they are anything but rumors at this point. It really depends on the distribution of bins that are actually found in mass production.

I personally have not been a fan of 4E cores. Implementation of software has been fairly poor on chips with just 4E cores. If I were in the Panther Lake target market (I'm not), then I would seriously look at chips that don't have 4E cores (I'd get either 0 of them or 8). But maybe I'm out-of-date with that now that things have changed.

Lack of HT isn't a big deal since we now have LP-E cores to handle that. Instead of slipping threads into down time on the P cores hoping to get 10% or maybe 20% performance, just give them full reign on LP-E cores to run as they please unhindered.

Another thing to consider is your IO needs. The 10 Xe and 12 Xe CPUs have far fewer PCIe lanes. The USB ports and/or drives will be limited on those laptops.

LNL has 4P+4LPE though also USB/TB are separate and from the PCI-E lanes