New Details Emerge About Intel Meteor Lake Graphics

Meteor Lake
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel's next generation processor, codenamed Meteor Lake could offer iGPU compute performance comparable to that of the company's Arc A380/A370M discrete GPU, if newly leaked information about configuration of the upcoming CPUs is accurate.

The information comes from Golden Pig Upgrade Pack (hat tip to VideoCardz), which tends to be accurate. Still, this is an unofficial source, so everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Meanwhile, the new details seemingly corroborate previously leaked information.

(Image credit: Golden Pig Upgrade Pack)

Rumored Specifications of Intel's 14th Generation Core CPUs

Swipe to scroll horizontally
PL1 TDPCore ConfigurationTotal CoresiGPUSiliconPackage
7W1P + 8E5 to 93 Xe - 4 XeMeteor LakeM
9W2P + 8E6 to 103 Xe - 4 XeMeteor LakeM
15W4P + 8E6 to 123 Xe - 8 XeMeteor LakeM
28W6P + 8E10 to 147 Xe - 8 XeMeteor LakeP
45W6P + 8E12 to 148 XeMeteor LakeH
55W8P + 16E14 to 2432 EURaptor LakeHX

Qualification samples under test by Intel's partners feature up to six high-performance Redwood Cove cores operating at 4.80 GHz, eight energy-efficient Crestmont cores, two low-power Crestmont cores, and an integrated GPU based on the Xe-LPG architecture with up to 128 execution units (which equals to 1024 stream processors as well as 8 Xe clusters) that can boost to 2.20 GHz. The part features a configurable TDP between 20W and 65W. Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 9 part could feature a maximum CPU clock of 5.0 GHz or higher.

Based on what we know about Intel's Xe-LPG architecture, we can expect Intel's upcoming iGPU to feature compute performance of around 4.5 FP32 TFLOPS, which is higher than performance of Intel's standalone Arc A380/A370M GPU (around 4.2 FP32 TFLOPS). Of course, discrete GPUs have the advantage of memory bandwidth, so it remains to be seen how close Intel's new iGPU can get to the company's current dGPU. Meanwhile, the new iGPU promises to offer higher compute horsepower than AMD's integrated Radeon 780M, which is theoretically capable of 4.3 FP32 TFLOPS.

One of the things that multi-chiplet architecture promises with Intel client CPUs is to enable considerably higher performance of integrated GPU now that the company is not limited with iGPU die size. If the information about configuration and clocks of Meteor Lake's iGPU is correct, then Meteor Lake could indeed offer high performance in games. The CPU will naturally not be able to compete against the best graphics cards, but it will considerably increase the performance of integrated graphics when compared to Intel's existing iGPUs.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • sherhi
    That would be cool, AMD's have been tested and it looked solid for older games...which is not particularly strong side of Intel GPUs
    Reply
  • cknobman
    I thought the 780M, like the Z1 Extreme, was capable of up to 8.6tflops?
    Reply
  • ikjadoon
    The part features a configurable TDP between 20W and 65W.

    Seems like a P CPU, which are 28W PL1 / 64W PL2. Sad to see high boost returning; I guess 15W+ per-core peak power & 5 GHz boost clocks are Intel's love affair it can't leave.

    15W PL1 → 55W (holy <Mod Edit>) PL2
    28W PL1 → 64W (seriously?) PL2

    This is desktop heat output under heatsinks thinner than your finger. Judging from history, Windows OEMs ignore the 7W and 9W lineup because it's so slow.

    Looks like "lifestyle company" Apple can design much higher 1T perf/W and we've not even seen Qualcomm's Oryon yet, which should ship close to MTL.

    Bets that Intel will be firmly at the bottom of the 1T perf / W list?
    Intel Meteor Lake - Intel 4
    AMD Zen4 mobile / "Phoenix" - TSMC N4
    Apple M3 - TSMC N3
    Qualcomm Oryon - presumably N4
    Reply
  • usertests
    The 1P + 8E configuration is new to me. I don't think the Celeron/Pentium 1P + 4E parts got much uptake.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    No mention of the rumored L4 cache?
    https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-patent-reveals-meteor-lake-adamantine-l4-cache
    That could make up for a lot of the missing bandwidth, relative to the dGPU equivalent (A380).
    Reply
  • bit_user
    cknobman said:
    I thought the 780M, like the Z1 Extreme, was capable of up to 8.6tflops?
    Yes, according to this:
    https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-780m.c4020
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    ikjadoon said:
    Seems like a P CPU, which are 28W PL1 / 64W PL2. Sad to see high boost returning; I guess 15W+ per-core peak power & 5 GHz boost clocks are Intel's love affair it can't leave.

    15W PL1 → 55W (holy <Mod Edit>) PL2
    28W PL1 → 64W (seriously?) PL2
    The thing with intel is that they also factor in the power draw of the graphics, there is no having the CPU run slower when the iGPU runs or any of that crap going on.
    The CPU alone will be using less than that.
    You can already see from the desktop SKUs, the CPUs have a much higher PL2 rating than what they can achieve.
    The 13400 for example is rated for 154W PL2 but doesn't even reach 80W in heavy loads, even with limits removed it only reaches 86 in blender.
    https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-13400f/21.html
    Reply
  • irish_adam
    TerryLaze said:
    The thing with intel is that they also factor in the power draw of the graphics, there is no having the CPU run slower when the iGPU runs or any of that crap going on.
    The CPU alone will be using less than that.
    You can already see from the desktop SKUs, the CPUs have a much higher PL2 rating than what they can achieve.
    The 13400 for example is rated for 154W PL2 but doesn't even reach 80W in heavy loads, even with limits removed it only reaches 86 in blender.
    https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-13400f/21.html
    That has to be the most extreme cherry picking I have ever seen. It doesn't hit its PL2 because Intel is lazy and just copy/pastes specs.

    You'll find Intel CPU's do hit their PL2 and beyond even in CPU only benchmarks. You'd have to be completely new to the scene to think otherwise.

    I'll just leave this here...
    13700k review
    Reply
  • ikjadoon
    TerryLaze said:
    The thing with intel is that they also factor in the power draw of the graphics, there is no having the CPU run slower when the iGPU runs or any of that crap going on.
    The CPU alone will be using less than that.
    You can already see from the desktop SKUs, the CPUs have a much higher PL2 rating than what they can achieve.
    The 13400 for example is rated for 154W PL2 but doesn't even reach 80W in heavy loads, even with limits removed it only reaches 86 in blender.
    https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-13400f/21.html

    The iGPU consumes <2W; for TDP #s, Intel ensures the iGPU runs at very low clocks. It's easy to double-check: IGP power draw is independently measured by most software tools.

    //

    In desktop, yes: Intel sandbags its TDPs and has for many years. See the "35W" Haswell i3-4130T; it only consumed 26W in peak power. So you "saved" 9W or 26% power!

    In mobile, it's a different story: Intel requires its entire PL2 budget to compete with AMD & Apple.

    i7-1265U in Cinebench R23 Single15W - 1600 pts
    20W - 1658 pts
    28W - 1761 pts

    This is just one core's power consumption. For +10% perf, Intel swallowed up to +86% more power.

    //

    Compare this to Apple, where the M2 scored 1585 pts. Intel requires +150% more power for the same performance.

    Intel will need 2-3 more years maybe to reach the Apple M1 efficiency at high perf levels.




    Under ~40W, Intel has struggled for 10+ years now. Today, it's Samsung Exynos bad. New nodes only help a little as they take 2-3 years but only offer incremental improvements over an already not-great node: it's gotta be a new uArch & design target.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    irish_adam said:
    It doesn't hit its PL2 because Intel is lazy and just copy/pastes specs.
    But that was ikjadoon only argument, he took the copy/pasted PL2 specs and acted as if they where measured results.
    Reply