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]

NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT ABSOLUTE PERFORMANCE.

It kinda is, just that PTL has none to speak of.
iGPs nice enough at least.

 

[poke01]

It kinda is, just that PTL has none to speak of.
iGPs nice enough at least.

In the laptop space? It’s not the determining factor for most.

 

[fastandfurious6]

Halo is all you need

from 2025 onwards no distinction between desktop/laptop chips, they're the same

efficient interconnect = even handheld can reap big perf of 9950X desktop chip at 30W / ULW

so what's the point about H chips which are nerfed by default? Just get half cores 9700X still better

and yes AMD should make 3Dcache accessible in more models lollll

 

[poke01]

Halo is all you need

from 2025 onwards no distinction between desktop/laptop chips, they're the same

efficient interconnect = even handheld can reap big perf of 9950X desktop chip at 30W / ULW

so what's the point about H chips which are nerfed by default? Just get half cores 9700X still better

and yes AMD should make 3Dcache accessible in more models lollll

Cost?

 

[fastandfurious6]

halfcores 9700X (laptop edition) better and cheaper than any intel H chip

 

[adroc_thurston]

It’s not the determining factor for most.

Oh no you very much need the perf.
Just not with sacrifices anywhere else.

 

[fastandfurious6]

yeah CPU = perf literally... as long as thermals/W are sane

 

[511]

Intel H chips are too weak

No real market... bet Phoenix still better than panther H

AMDs entire H lineup is weak looses to RPL H which can clock to 5.8Ghz 😛

 

[adroc_thurston]

AMDs entire H lineup is weak looses to RPL H which can clock to 5.8Ghz 😛

a) truthnuke
b) i just love 50W 1t power in a laptop

 

[511]

a) truthnuke
b) i just love 50W 1t power in a laptop

It's not 50W though around 35-40W

 

[Schmide]

That makes no sense. Zen 5 architecture details/slides are not hard to find.

They go into the later architectures. Mostly zen2 -> zen3, and they do touch on avx512. It wasn't bad.

 

[Philste]

Yeah. The top one is a meme of meme volume, mainly for benchmark purposes. Intel's done this before. The lower 7 bin is the one that OEMs will use.

If the clocks stay at least reasonable close, i dont think it's that big of an Issue. For LNL it was -300MHz on CPU and -100MHz on iGPU for 258V and 288V, with the 268V with only -100MHz on the CPU as well. That's a 5% difference in ST at best.

AMD did the same 4 Years ago with Cezanne. The 5980HS/HX were nonexistant. The HS had one Asus Device, the HX was never seen. They had advertised 4.8GHz back then, they ended up with the 5900HX/HS with 4.6GHz as Top End.

 

[Covfefe]

CS433: Computer System Organization

Interesting that from AMD side they chose Zen 2 but for Intel they chose Lunar Lake.

Do they think that Lunar Lake is the first competent Intel architecture since Haswell? Or did Intel give them incentives (like free laptops or goodies etc.) and also to promote their laptop sales?

Which reason could it be I wonder?

Looks like they picked technically interesting and historically significant architectures. Zen2 and Lunar Lake are some of the most interesting CPU designs in recent years.

Zen2 was AMD's first modern chiplet CPU. They hadn't moved to 8-core CCXs yet, which means two CCXs per CCD. It was their first AVX-512 enabled CPU. AMD primarily uses chiplets for cost savings via better yields, design reuse, and older nodes for less critical chiplets. AMD's chiplet strategy has remained more or less the same since Zen2.

Lunar Lake's chiplets are far more advanced than AMD's. The chiplet interconnect is more advanced. It has more bandwidth, lower power consumption, and uses a base tile. The chiplet architecture is probably cheaper than a monolithic N3B CPU (otherwise, why would they bother with chiplets?), but the cost savings aren't nearly as big as AMD's approach. Lunar Lake also has heterogeneous cores (p-cores and e-cores). It's e-cores are used for low power workloads AND multithreaded performance (I believe it's the first Intel CPU to use e-cores that way). And it has on-package ram, an SLC, and an NPU.