Intel's Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake CPUs will arrive in 2024 - three times more AI performance for both GPU and NPU

News
By Paul Alcorn
published

Intel's next-gen products are moving along.

Intel
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Intel held the first of its two CES 2024 presentations today here in Las Vegas and announced that the company's Arrow Lake processors for desktop PCs and Lunar Lake for laptop PCs are coming to market in the second half of 2024. Intel's Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the EVP and GM of the Client Computing Group, said the company is already "in the deep and final stages" of the two new processors. 

Arrow Lake will be an extension of the Intel Core Ultra architecture to high-performance desktop PCs for gaming. Holthaus said it will be the first gaming processor for the PC with AI capabilities. That's a claim AMD will surely dispute, given that it launched its own Ryzen chips with AI acceleration capabilities today. Intel's use of its general Meteor Lake design for laptops, and then putting it into a (presumably) socketed form factor is reminiscent of AMD's current approach of repurposing its laptop APUs for desktop PCs, too. Interesting. 

Holthaus also announced that Lunar Lake would arrive this year for laptops. This new chip has a 'radically new low-power architecture and significant IPC improvements,' along with three times more AI performance on both the GPU and the NPU than Meteor Lake. These chips are shipping to Intel's partners now.

"Our execution on this product has been excellent, and I'm pleased to say that we're already shipping systems to partners. It's up and running. It's doing very well. And Lunar Lake is truly the next level AI performance for thin and light PCs," Holtahus said.  

Intel

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

As you can see in the image above, Holthaus displayed the Lunar Lake chip to the crowd. We can see that this processor has one large die, which could be comprised of multiple tiles/chiplets, and two accompanying structures that appear to be on-package DRAM. We can spot what appears to be three tiles in the Lunar Lake processor. 

This design appears to be very similar to the chip we caught on a later-redacted Intle video earlier this year. You can see the shot of that chip below:

(Image credit: Intel)

Intel posted the above chip to a video, then removed it from public view -- but not before I downloaded a copy. This chip is largely thought to be an unreleased Meteor Lake revision with on-package LPDDR5X, much like the Lunar Lake model Intel displayed today. This type of design with on-package memory confers latency and power advantages, not to mention space savings for laptop designs.

We're here at the event and will run down more details. Stay tuned.  

Paul Alcorn
Paul Alcorn
Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech

Paul Alcorn is the Managing Editor: News and Emerging Tech for Tom's Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.

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41 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Findecanor
    Serious question: Why in the world would I want that?
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    For GPU power, encode, decode and gaming, otherwise yes you don't need it
    Findecanor said:
    Serious question: Why in the world would I want that?
    For AI- Windows 12 AI featuresNow personally I like the custom accelerators now available to all that will speed up creator task (media editing/creation). The window features... garbage honestly. Microsoft continues to break its own search since Windows 7, then to fix it again in windows 10/11.
    Reply
  • circadia
    I hope the NPU can be used for other purposes, especially for something like AI frame-gen.
    Reply
  • usertests
    Hard to tell without more numbers but sounds like they're trying to get to the same 45-50 TOPS ballpark as AMD's Strix Point and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite.

    This chip is largely thought to be an unreleased Meteor Lake revision with on-package LPDDR5X, much like the Lunar Lake model Intel displayed today.
    I assume the unreleased Core Ultra 7 164U and Core Ultra 5 134U will be the models with on-package LPDDR5X. Those have a lower 9W base TDP.
    Reply
  • Geef
    Make sure your PC AI isn't listening to you when you talk. You don't want to be playing a video game with your friend yelling at him goofey phrases like your gonna beat him with a rainbow di_do if he kills you again and later have Amazon show you the availability of that item on the front page!
    Reply
  • DSzymborski
    Findecanor said:
    Serious question: Why in the world would I want that?

    I don't need a vehicle that can tow a boat, but I don't go around feigning ignorance about why there are vehicles that have the ability to tow a boat.
    Reply
  • peachpuff
    Intel should use ai to increase their ipc...
    Reply
  • spicy_cat
    usertests said:
    Hard to tell without more numbers but sounds like they're trying to get to the same 45-50 TOPS ballpark as AMD's Strix Point and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite.


    I assume the unreleased Core Ultra 7 164U and Core Ultra 5 134U will be the models with on-package LPDDR5X. Those have a lower 9W base TDP.
    Do we know if the on-package LPDDR5X will be used in place of main RAM for tablet/ultra-thin laptop form factors or if it's meant to be an extra-wide memory bus close to the CPU as an extra level of cache to compete with X3D? Or can it do both duties like the embedded DRAM in some of Intel's server CPUs?
    Reply
  • magbarn
    Same 6 Pcore limit? No Thanks. Who cares about AI. They need to release a CPU that's at least competitive with the 7XXXX3D chips in gaming and desktop meteor is not it.
    Reply
  • vehekos
    circadia said:
    I hope the NPU can be used for other purposes, especially for something like AI frame-gen.
    It surely will serve to run AI in the user PC. local chatgtp, copilot.
    Reply