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.

 

[MarkPost]

nvm

 

[Hitman928]

In my experience from talking to my PC gamer friends in real life, the majority of them don't overclock their RAM. Enthusiasts do, but not the average gamer.

Fair point for Ryzen gaining more from going to 6400 than intel does going to 8000.

They leave them at JEDEC? Not even enable EXPO/XMP? It's literally a single click on the first page of most BIOSes. Personally, I don't know anyone who built their own PC that doesn't at least enable them. Almost every pre-built gaming PC will come with them enabled as well.

 

[igor_kavinski]

View attachment 109110

At least ONE Excel monkey inside Intel confirmed!

 

[gdansk]

They leave them at JEDEC? Not even enable EXPO/XMP? It's literally a single click on the first page of most BIOSes. Personally, I don't know anyone who built their own PC that doesn't at least enable them. Almost every pre-built gaming PC will come with them enabled as well.

I have a split view on this. I think gaming results should be presented with a reasonably priced XMP kit. I do expect that to be typical. It's called "gamer stable" memory for a reason 🤣 . But other results, like Geekbench SPECrate etc, should be run with officially supported memory speeds.

 

[Hitman928]

Here's a better slide for efficiency comparison (kind of as there are no hard numbers on the graph and it only shows Cinebench). Anyone have a similar chart for the 9950x and 14900k to compare relative curves?

 

[dullard]

Guess that currently Intel is devising about the exact power they ll use since at 250W they will have a win only in CB R20/R23 for MT, and a marginal one.

They may well set 297W as PL2

Ok, is Intel still devising the power limits? I mean, they have 2 weeks until launch and reviews come out. It can't possibly be that they are at the same PL1 = PL2 = 250 W power limit that has been reported for 1.5 years. https://www.igorslab.de/en/intels-i...n-for-raptor-lake-s-refresh-and-arrow-lake-s/

 

[511]

Here's a better slide for efficiency comparison (kind of as there are no hard numbers on the graph and it only shows Cinebench). Anyone have a similar chart for the 9950x and 14900k to compare relative curves?

View attachment 109123

Here for r23 can't find one on r24

https://twitter.com/x/status/1829142689906078103

 

[coercitiv]

But other results, like Geekbench SPECrate etc, should be run with officially supported memory speeds.

I would agree on this as long as Intel was clear about supported memory speeds on their products. As was documented in this thread already, Raptor Lake does not officially support DDR5 5600 on 2 DPC boards. (so boards with 4 mem slots, whether populated or not)

 

[GTracing]

They leave them at JEDEC? Not even enable EXPO/XMP? It's literally a single click on the first page of most BIOSes. Personally, I don't know anyone who built their own PC that doesn't at least enable them. Almost every pre-built gaming PC will come with them enabled as well.

Yes, they never touch BIOS either because they don't know or don't care about that last 5% performance.

The issue with the prebuilts is that when the overclock gets reset after a windows update or a BSOD, the user doesn't know there's anything wrong. I've had each of those happen to 3700x machine multiple times.

 

[Hitman928]

Yes, they never touch BIOS either because they don't know or don't care about that last 5% performance.

The issue with the prebuilts is that when the overclock gets reset after a windows update or a BSOD, the user doesn't know there's anything wrong. I've had each of those happen to 3700x machine multiple times.

Well, I have no data but I would say your friends are the exception for diy as basically every beginner's guide I've ever seen tells you to enable XMP/EXPO. How do they even decide which memory to buy if they don't know about memory speeds?

Pre-built overclocks shouldn't be getting reset after a Windows update or BSOD, it's applied at the BIOS level, unless the system fails to boot properly after a freeze and so the BIOS applies default settings. That shouldn't happen though unless there's an issue with the system and it needs to be sent in for repair.

 

[9949asd]

This slide from Intel is silly. Why? Because to get these power numbers, they set PL1=125 W for the 285K and PL1 = 253 W for the 14900K. Yes, they say performance is on par and clearly the 285K is more efficient as that won't effect the 1t results, but for the others that are lightly threaded stuff, if you dropped the PL1 to 125 W for the 14900K, you wouldn't lose very much performance at all. Why not just set both to 125 W and show a like for like comparison? The 285K would still look good, just maybe not quite as good, but at least it would be an honest comparison.

View attachment 109119

No, it’s both 125w tdp. The pl1 of 285k is also 250w.

 

[9949asd]

Yes, they never touch BIOS either because they don't know or don't care about that last 5% performance.

The issue with the prebuilts is that when the overclock gets reset after a windows update or a BSOD, the user doesn't know there's anything wrong. I've had each of those happen to 3700x machine multiple times.

Intel’s testing always use JEDEC memory.

 

[controlflow]

Intel claims the sweet spot for ARL is DDR5 8000, with a 5% increase in gaming performance relative to 6400.

Pretty boring for gaming performance but ARL looks decent overall when you consider MT compute performance and improved power efficiency.

 

[Hitman928]

No, it’s both 125w tdp. The pl1 of 285k is also 250w.

Your post contradicts itself, but I went back to check anyway and I was wrong, it is not set to PL1=125 W for that slide. I found the below in the footnotes but it only applies to the Cinebench slide. Curiously, they don't mention PL2 here, so the Cinebench slide above may not be actually power limited as suggested but rather PL1=X-axis and PL2= 250/253W. If so, the chart isn't really a fair comparison as the boost duration between CPUs may be very different (i.e., AMD CPUs don't have a boost duration and won't boost past the set power level).

 

[511]

Huh better to wait for review than we will know their slides are such a joke sometimes they don't even write under the same slide clearly

 

[ondma]

But why would the average gamer/consumer buy the $590 285K instead of the <$500 14.9KK?

Because of the stability issues of RL. Certainly if there were no competitive product from AMD, I would pay the extra for ARL. The more serious problem for intel is pricing vs Zen 5 and even Zen 4.

 

[Abwx]

Ok, is Intel still devising the power limits? I mean, they have 2 weeks until launch and reviews come out. It can't possibly be that they are at the same PL1 = PL2 = 250 W power limit that has been reported for 1.5 years. https://www.igorslab.de/en/intels-i...n-for-raptor-lake-s-refresh-and-arrow-lake-s/

I pointed on 8 23 that It would be at least 250W PL1 = PL2 when there were stll hopes for 177W, so what is wrong..?

 

[AcrosTinus]

So after consuming the news, Arrow Lake is worth buying.
It is faster than my old and sold 13700k and 12900k systems and provides better gaming.

Overall for productivity and running VMs or other workloads, not bad.
For 4K gaming, no impact, so only gains in frames and reduction in power draw.

*cope-mode off*

 

[dullard]

I pointed on 8 23 that It would be at least 250W PL1 = PL2 when there were stll hopes for 177W, so what is wrong..?

(1) You said the power limits were currently being devised which is factually incorrect and technically impossible 2 months before launch since the motherboard and computer designs were well underway.
(2) You said 297 W, repeatedly, on many posts, and argued against 250 W.

 

[Abwx]

(1) You said the power limits were currently being devised which is factually incorrect and technically impossible 2 months before launch since the motherboard and computer designs were well underway.
(2) You said 297 W, repeatedly, on many posts, and argued against 250 W.

That s right, they decided for 250W very early.

Btw, what is exactly APO..?.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Btw, what is exactly APO..?.

Intel® Application Optimization Overview

Explains Intel® Application Optimization for gaming optimization.

www.intel.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/1axprbc/holy_crap_this_thing_works_and_really_well_intel

 

[dullard]

Btw, what is exactly APO..?.

The link was just posted above to show exactly what it is. Simply put, it (a) optimizes the Windows scheduler for each game in the list and (b) uses the dynamic tuning technology (DTT) to shift power between the graphics card and the CPU (while staying within the specified power limits) to best optimize for each game.

If a game needs to be on certain hybrid core types, APO does that. If a game needs more GPU power but less CPU power, APO does that (within specified power limits). If a game needs less GPU power but more CPU power, APO does that (within specified power limits).

 

[Abwx]

The link was just posted above to show exactly what it is. Simply put, it (a) optimizes the Windows scheduler for each game in the list and (b) uses the dynamic tuning technology (DTT) to shift power between the graphics card and the CPU (while staying within the specified power limits) to best optimize for each game.

If a game needs to be on certain hybrid core types, APO does that. If a game needs more GPU power but less CPU power, APO does that (within specified power limits). If a game needs less GPU power but more CPU power, APO does that (within specified power limits).

That look like it is for mobile with iGPU, with DTs the CPU has no say for the GPU power, so why is it used for DT ARL.?

 

[dullard]

That look like it is for mobile with iGPU, with DTs the CPU has no say for the GPU power, so why is it used for DT ARL.?

Intel has discrete graphics cards that it can work with. Practically no one uses them, but technically it is possible. And there are some people (like me) that actually use the iGPU on desktop chips.

For most gamers though, with discrete non-Intel graphics cards, it is just a Windows scheduler tweak optimized for specific game needs.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Intel's slides show that gaming performance is linear with power for the 285K (same performance per watt, at least when going from 125 W to 250 W). So, if that slide is correct, then 250 W power is double the gaming performance as 125 W. If that holds at higher power levels, then 300 W would have about a 20% gaming boost over 250 W.
View attachment 109120

Thats good.= and hopeful. And no gaming workload even most thread heavy games would use 300W all the time. It would be in brief spikes with constant usage much lower I assume right? Same with 250W.