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.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Well this obviously incorrect statement has aged like warm milk and has now been proven to be false by TSMC's own CEO. TSMC was not able to forecast current demand in projections from 3+ years ago, and therefore did not size their bleeding edge fabs capacity anywhere close to meeting current demand, lol.

https://www.ctee.com.tw/news/20251124700058-430501

He's just pumping his stock.

 

[poke01]

I'm talking about x86 vs ARM comparisons. The mobile benchmarks run on FP16, and the PC GPUs run on FP32, even though Intel has been capable of FP16 since Bay Trail. That's a big part of why Apple GPUs underperform in games compared to Nvidia GPUs.

This is true but from M5 however Apples GPUs are finally good in PC AAA games and it’s evident in Time Spy and the huge increases in FPS in AAA titles over M4

M4 TS - 2750
M5 TS - ~4000

This is still lower than Lunar Lake but much better than what it was with M4.



Of course Nvidia will still be faster, the maximum power consumption of Apples M5 GPU is 19-20 watts.

 

[adroc_thurston]

This is true but from M5 however Apples GPUs are finally good in PC AAA games and it’s evident in Time Spy and the huge increases in FPS in AAA titles over M4

M4 TS - 2750
M5 TS - ~4000

This is still lower than Lunar Lake but much better than what it was with M4.

View attachment 134408

Of course Nvidia will still be faster, the maximum power consumption of Apples M5 GPU is 19-20 watts.

Yuh, Apple finally has gfx IP worth mentioning.

 

[Doug S]

Which is exactly what I was telling him, and why AMD will prioritize wafers for AI and DC rather than DT. The insane demand materialized only in the last 2 years or so, not enough time to expand construction of fabs to meet it, therefore they cant produce enough to meet the demand.

If the demand is there , AMD'd have to be foolish not to prioritize allocation to AI and DC.

Yep AMD will ride that out as long as bubble money is willing to pay them a huge premium. They will trickle out some Zen 6 stuff on DT/laptop for the premium segment to keep their roadmap commitment to OEMs, but it'll be in SEVERE shortage. I suppose fanboys will try to make the case that's because it is so popular, but that won't be the real reason.

 

[Josh128]

Yep AMD will ride that out as long as bubble money is willing to pay them a huge premium. They will trickle out some Zen 6 stuff on DT/laptop for the premium segment to keep their roadmap commitment to OEMs, but it'll be in SEVERE shortage. I suppose fanboys will try to make the case that's because it is so popular, but that won't be the real reason.

They'd be dumb not to strike while the iron is hot. We'll see for sure when the first Zen 6 SKU drops.

 

[OneEng2]

Interesting where the 2 companies are focusing. Intel releases PTL for mobile first while AMD will release Venice for DC first.

I don't understand Intel these days

 

[poke01]

Acer Predator PHN16S-I51 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an Acer Predator PHN16S-I51 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor.

browser.geekbench.com

CPU at 4.6GHz

 

[511]

Interesting where the 2 companies are focusing. Intel releases PTL for mobile first while AMD will release Venice for DC first.

I don't understand Intel these days

Intel never understood themselves either 🤣🤣

 

[poke01]

So there’s a couple more benchmarks for the Ultra 9 PTL and it looks like IPC increased around 4-5% over lunar lake 256V.

 

[511]

So there’s a couple more benchmarks for the Ultra 9 PTL and it looks like IPC increased around 4-5% over lunar lake 256V.

For the same core it's decent like Cougar is lion on 18A and Darkmont is Skymont on 18A.

 

[MoistOintment]

So there’s a couple more benchmarks for the Ultra 9 PTL and it looks like IPC increased around 4-5% over lunar lake 256V.

I think anything (like games) that saw performance issues from ARL's SoC design should see an improvement greater than what synthetics suggest. ARL underperforms what synthetics in plenty of real-world apps.

 

[poke01]

I think anything (like games) that saw performance issues from ARL's SoC design should see an improvement greater than what synthetics suggest. ARL underperforms what synthetics in plenty of real-world apps.

That’s why I compared ST with Lunar lake. ARL is botched

 

[DrMrLordX]

Intel releases PTL for mobile first

I don't understand Intel these days

. . . and they also (apparently) nuked most of their shipping volume for Diamond Rapids. Their datacentre execution has been pretty bad for awhile now, with the moderate exception of Granite Rapids.

 

[511]

. . . and they also (apparently) nuked most of their shipping volume for Diamond Rapids. Their datacentre execution has been pretty bad for awhile now, with the moderate exception of Granite Rapids.

And sierra Forest which launched on time I wonder will they ship DMR 16CH on 12/8 Ch platform or are they trying to make the 12Ch platform new default cause that would be nice. There are places where we need 16-32C SKU

 

[Meteor Late]

So there’s a couple more benchmarks for the Ultra 9 PTL and it looks like IPC increased around 4-5% over lunar lake 256V.

Yep Panther Lake is a fail in terms of CPU.

 

[511]

Yep Panther Lake is a fail in terms of CPU.

How so?
It's literally the same cores in ARL/LNL
Just better perf/watt that's what's needed in laptop

 

[Magio]

It's also initial benchmarks that don't even meet the 386H's leaked clocks.

 

[Josh128]

Acer Predator PHN16S-I51 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an Acer Predator PHN16S-I51 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor.

browser.geekbench.com

CPU at 4.6GHz

Scores are roughly on par with 12 core Strix Point HX 370. Hopefully this 16 core is using far less power or else what the hell are they doing?

 

[511]

Scores are roughly on par with 12 core Strix Point HX 370. Hopefully this 16 core is using far less power or else what the hell are they doing?

> It's Geekbench so MT benchmark is not worth comparing
> ST at 4.7 GHz according to Geekbench logs and power is big unknown

 

[OneEng2]

So there’s a couple more benchmarks for the Ultra 9 PTL and it looks like IPC increased around 4-5% over lunar lake 256V.

This kinda confirms the very modest transistor density improvement of 18A over N3B. We will see (need die size to be sure).

Scores are roughly on par with 12 core Strix Point HX 370. Hopefully this 16 core is using far less power or else what the hell are they doing?

I have been thinking that 18A might well be a great fit in the laptop segment. It might not clock that high, but will sip power.

 

[Meteor Late]

N3B was bad anyway, we've seen a tweet of TSMC comparing the evolution of various nodes from N7 to A14 in terms of performance and efficiency, and they use N3E instead of N3B for a reason.

 

[511]

N3B was bad anyway, we've seen a tweet of TSMC comparing the evolution of various nodes from N7 to A14 in terms of performance and efficiency, and they use N3E instead of N3B for a reason.

N3B was one of the nodes that tsmc didn't do well and was late it is still better than N5 by double digit though and has decent density but the cost was not good.

 

[mikegg]

Acer Predator PHN16S-I51 - Geekbench

Benchmark results for an Acer Predator PHN16S-I51 with an Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor.

browser.geekbench.com

CPU at 4.6GHz

Holy cow that's bad ST for 2026.

Qualcomm's upcoming Oyron Windows SoCs are going to destroy Intel.

I remember when people said Lunar Lake killed Qualcomm's WoA effort. I think Qualcomm is going to absolutely kill Intel in the next few years on Windows.

 

[511]

Holy cow that's bad ST for 2026.

Qualcomm's upcoming Oyron Windows SoCs are going to destroy Intel.

I remember when people said Lunar Lake killed Qualcomm's WoA effort. I think Qualcomm is going to absolutely kill Intel in the next few years on Windows.

Nice Dreams waiting for PTL to Outship QCOM 7:1 it's not going to happen in the next 2-3 years at least.

 

[mikegg]

Nice Dreams waiting for PTL to Outship QCOM 7:1 it's not going to happen in the next 2-3 years at least.

PTL will outship Qualcomm in 2026 for Windows laptops. That's for sure. Inertia.

But over the next few years? Intel is going to lose marketshare and have to drop prices to compete against Qualcomm. They're the lower tier compared to Qualcomm chips, which are significantly faster and more efficient.