Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads

[Tigerick]

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.



Comparison of upcoming Intel's U-series CPU: Core Ultra 100U, Lunar Lake and Panther Lake

Model	Code-Name	Date	TDP	Node	Tiles	Main Tile	CPU	LP E-Core	LLC	GPU	Xe-cores
Core Ultra 100U	Meteor Lake	Q4 2023	15 - 57 W	Intel 4 + N5 + N6	4	tCPU	2P + 8E	2	12 MB	Intel Graphics	4
?	Lunar Lake	Q4 2024	17 - 30 W	N3B + N6	2	CPU + GPU & IMC	4P + 4E	0	8 MB	Arc	8
?	Panther Lake	Q1 2026 ?	?	Intel 18A + N3E	3	CPU + MC	4P + 8E	4	?	Arc	12

Comparison of die size of Each Tile of Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake and Panther Lake

	Meteor Lake	Arrow Lake (20A)	Arrow Lake (N3B)	Arrow Lake Refresh (N3B)	Lunar Lake	Panther Lake
Platform	Mobile H/U Only	Desktop Only	Desktop & Mobile H&HX	Desktop Only	Mobile U Only	Mobile H
Process Node	Intel 4	Intel 20A	TSMC N3B	TSMC N3B	TSMC N3B	Intel 18A
Date	Q4 2023	Q1 2025 ?	Desktop-Q4-2024 H&HX-Q1-2025	Q4 2025 ?	Q4 2024	Q1 2026 ?
Full Die	6P + 8P	6P + 8E ?	8P + 16E	8P + 32E	4P + 4E	4P + 8E
LLC	24 MB	24 MB ?	36 MB ?	?	8 MB	?
tCPU	66.48
tGPU	44.45
SoC	96.77
IOE	44.45
Total	252.15

Intel Core Ultra 100 - Meteor Lake



As mentioned by Tomshardware, TSMC will manufacture the I/O, SoC, and GPU tiles. That means Intel will manufacture only the CPU and Foveros tiles. (Notably, Intel calls the I/O tile an 'I/O Expander,' hence the IOE moniker.)

 

[adroc_thurston]

Do they not know that SPEC2017 is especially demanding on the memory subsystem performance?

Well, no.
Outside of a few subtests, it is not.
Real membw stuff is things like HPCG that shred your cachemet into bits in the name of scaling something analogues to university student Python math code.

 

[tamz_msc]

They've literally said they'd shipped like a zillion AI PC units (that's all PHX) to date.
What's with the esoteric cope.

Apparently the "AI" stuff in Phoenix is barely supporting one data type:

 

[adroc_thurston]

Apparently the "AI" stuff in Phoenix is barely supporting one data type:

Ughhh they've chosen to ignore the intended toolchain (Vitis AI) altogether.
Not my problem.

 

[Abwx]

Are the pro-AMDers blind? Do they need magnifying glasses to read the footnotes to find out the Intel ran SPECint_2017_base 1copy for 1T and ncopy for MT? Do they not know that SPEC2017 is especially demanding on the memory subsystem performance? And do they not see that the comparisons are with 7467 MT/s memory vs 6400 MT/s memory?

They say that they recompiled SPEC with ICC.

If RPL was that fast in ST Integer, 21% faster than AMD according to Intel, lol, it wouldnt lag by 10% IPC in 7 Zip ST or be trounced in Handbrake.

 

[cebri1]

Looking good for casual use.

 

[tamz_msc]

Well, no.
Outside of a few subtests, it is not.

Uh huh...



From arxiv:1910.00651

Memory bandwidth is calculated as the product of the total LLC misses per second with the cache line
size.

Majority of the benchmarks have very high peak memory bandwidth requirement.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Majority of the benchmarks have very high peak memory bandwidth requirement.

Peak is whatever, membw stuffed is measured in sustained b/w numbers.
Only a few subtests actually sustain measurably relevant mem traffic.

 

[Abwx]

How desperate one can be, to the point of releasing fake numbers, now even the 1370P at 30W has better perf/Watt than the 7840U@30W, even Apple is lagging compared to Intel.

They display the 165H has getting 2x more perf for 2x the TDP from 10W to 20W, laws of physics be damned, nothing is impossible for Intel s snake oil refiniries :

Intel Core Ultra alias Meteor Lake: Details und Specs

Heute startet endlich Intels neue CPU-Generation Meteor Lake in Form von elf U- und H-Modellen bei allen namhaften Partnern.

www.computerbase.de

 

[Geddagod]

Disappointing.

 

[adroc_thurston]

View attachment 90400
Disappointing.

this chart is funnier since PHX is notable for falling apart at 15W (in games, that is).

 

[clemsyn]

A couple of video reviews that are positive

Dave2D

HardwareCanucks

 

[CouncilorIrissa]

Intel's mature high clocking nodes really have a tendency to screw them over, don't they? It's what, third time when their new lineups lose in ST compared to predecessors (Haswell -> Broadwell, RPL -> MTL, Whiskey Lake -> Ice Lake)?

 

[Hitman928]

Are the pro-AMDers blind? Do they need magnifying glasses to read the footnotes to find out the Intel ran SPECint_2017_base 1copy for 1T and ncopy for MT? Do they not know that SPEC2017 is especially demanding on the memory subsystem performance? And do they not see that the comparisons are with 7467 MT/s memory vs 6400 MT/s memory?

So is your argument that Intel isn't being deceptive, just that they are purposefully crippling the competition to show that they have higher performance?

 

[Hitman928]

View attachment 90398

Looking good for casual use.

Yes, if you just let it sit idle or use your laptop as a really expensive e-book reader (which is basically what this test is), then battery life is phenomenal with MTL but I don't think this is very representative of even casual use. This is the situation I predicted MTL would look really good in, but that anything where you actually use your laptop as a laptop, I was very skeptical there would be much improvement. We still need to see more thorough battery tests but from what we have, the battery life doesn't look very much improved over RPL in typical use case scenarios.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I like that in order to use the ARC branding, it has to have at least 16GB in dual channel. Nothing kills iGPU like single channel and insufficient amount of ram.

 

[João Bortolace]

I like that in order to use the ARC branding, it has to have at least 16GB in dual channel. Nothing kills iGPU like single channel and insufficient amount of ram.

Intel is forcing 16GB dual channel for ARC iGPU

 

[cebri1]

Yes, if you just let it sit idle or use your laptop as a really expensive e-book reader (which is basically what this test is), then battery life is phenomenal with MTL but I don't think this is very representative of even casual use. This is the situation I predicted MTL would look really good in, but that anything where you actually use your laptop as a laptop, I was very skeptical there would be much improvement. We still need to see more thorough battery tests but from what we have, the battery life doesn't look very much improved over RPL in typical use case scenarios.

 

[FlameTail]

So Intel has accepted that Qualcomm is now a competitor. Judging by the slides containing numbers of the 8cx Gen 3.

 

[Hitman928]

View attachment 90403

These look like more realistic tests but without power plan info it makes it harder to say for certain how directly comparable they are.

 

[Hitman928]

I think Notebookcheck has a really good summary of where MTL stands today. They do mention that the review units they received may not have the final drivers/firmware so potential battery life and gaming improvements possible. Also seem to indicate that retail units won't actually ship until January. I checked Newegg for 155H laptops and there is 1 unit that is supposedly in stock, so maybe some can still get theirs before Christmas.

Intel’s marketing material claims significant power savings while idling and during lighter workloads including Netflix streaming, which is supposed to be handled by the two LowPower efficiency cores of the SoC tile alone, so the compute tile can be turned off. We will try to check these claims over the next couple of days and update this article accordingly. However, we might have to wait a bit until final drivers and software versions are available. . .

Our preliminary test results of the new Intel Meteor Lake processor Core Ultra 7 155H are rather sobering, especially in terms of CPU performance. Our results are pretty much in line with the reference scores we got from Intel, so software updates should not really make a big difference here. The overall CPU performance is pretty much the same as it was with Raptor Lake, but the new H-series chips now cover an even wider TDP range (28-115 Watts), so especially the multi-core performance can vary significantly between different laptops.
We are still cautious when it comes to the efficiency and want to wait for final retail samples, before we can give a verdict. Our results so far indicate minor improvements of the efficiency under load, both for single-core as well as multi-core load scenarios. However, Intel is still far behind AMD and Apple, even if the efficiency numbers are still getting a bit better with retail units. At this point, we cannot yet say anything about Intel’s efficiency claims while idling and light workloads, which is also the case for the AI performance.
Intel’s Meteor Lake offers a big boost in GPU performance and can also beat AMD’s Radeon 780M. Both the CPU performance as well as the CPU efficiency under load, however, did not change all that much.
The situation is better for the new Arc GPUs, but you have to keep in mind that they are reserved for the new H-series processors. The performance increase is massive, at least in synthetic benchmarks, and Intel even manages to beat AMD’s Radeon 780M. The situation changes in actual gaming benchmarks though, but we believe driver updates can improve the situation. We will also add more gaming benchmarks of recent titles over the next couple of days and test Intel’s XeSS upscaling. In addition to increased performance, the efficiency of the Arc GPU is also better and it is almost on par with the Radeon 780M.
You might think that the removal of the P-series makes it easier to find a suitable processor, but this is not the case. As mentioned before, the H-series chips now cover an even wider TDP range and customers just don’t know what performance they will get. AMD’s Zen4 processor (4 nm) is still the better choice in the lower TDP range (28 Watts) and the cooling solution does not have to deal with immense short-term power limits. Apple raised the bar even further with the new M3 generation (3 nm), both in terms of performance as well as efficiency.
We are also a bit worried about the Core Ultra U-series chips, which are still equipped with two performance cores. They were hardly mentioned in the press material and the do not get the fast Arc GPU, either, but only a slower version with 4 Xe cores, which might offer the performance of the familiar Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96 EUs).
We will try to update this article with more data as quickly as possible, but it looks like we will have to wait until January before we get our hands on retail devices with Meteor Lake.

 

[FlameTail]

View attachment 90403

Absolute flex by the Macbook which trades blows with the others, while having a smaller battery.

 

[desrever]

Absolute flex by the Macbook which trades blows with the others, while having a smaller battery.

He also mislabelled the AMD laptop as 75Wh, its actually 67Wh, which will make it more competitive with Apple but obviously Apple still leading by sizable margin.

 

[Tup3x]

So Intel has accepted that Qualcomm is now a competitor. Judging by the slides containing numbers of the 8cx Gen 3.

I was about to say the same. A bit funny how they are trying to flex against obsolete and ancient PC Snapdragon... Maybe they are a bit scared that things may not go the way they want in the near future.

 

[TESKATLIPOKA]

Meteor Lake is out and I am not awed one bit, more like disappointed.
What happened to very high base clocks? I was so naive to believe in that.
IGP is also not as good as I expected based on notebookcheck analysis.
Prices are also out and It's not cheap in my country. Cheapest is Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 with Ultra 5 125H + 16GB + 512GB + RTX 3050 for €1219.

Good news is that I don't have to regret buying a Phoenix laptop today.
Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 14APH8 with 7840HS + 32GB + 1TB for only €981 taxes included, I think It was a great buy for that money.

 

[Hitman928]

He also mislabelled the AMD laptop as 75Wh, its actually 67Wh, which will make it more competitive with Apple but obviously Apple still leading by sizable margin.

Here are the results, with the AMD battery correction, normalized to a 75Wh battery. Still, without more details on testing conditions, not a whole lot of insight to be had.