Computex 2024 is increasingly confirmed as the AI event. After the presentation of the new AMD Ryzen AI 300 processors and the latest NVIDIA technologies, Intel has also officially showcased the new CPU from the Lunar Lake range which will populate the next “AI PCs” and compete directly with the red house’s counterparts and with Qualcomm’s recent Snapdragon
The Lunar Lake range promises better performance per core, a leap forward in graphics, energy efficiency and of course advanced AI capabilities. Here are all the details.
Intel Lunar Lake and the challenge for artificial intelligence
In recent months we have talked several times about Lunar Lake CPUs, anticipating some of the innovations brought by the new SoCs of the Californian company ready to openly challenge Snapdragon X Elite and the most recent AMD Ryzen AI 300 on the portable device front.
From the stage of Computex 2024, Intel has finally showcased the new processors arriving: according to the data presented, Lunar Lake it promises better energy efficiency, with consumption reduced by up to 40% compared to the previous generation, net of substantially identical performance per core. The new SoCs also bring innovations on the graphics front, with 1.5 times higher performance and finally artificial intelligence capabilities that can reach up to 120 TOPS.
All this thanks to a new 8-core hybrid design which can rely on 4 E-cores from the Skymont family and 4 P-cores from the Lion Cove family, with 2.5 MB of L2 cache and up to 12 MB of L3 cache, which work in symbiosis to guarantee better scalability of performance per watt .
The graphics sector of the new Lunar Lake SoCs is instead entrusted to Xe2 GPU, characterized by 8 latest generation X-cores, 8 ray tracing units, 8 MB of cache and advanced AI features. Compared to Meteor Lake, Intel promises 50% higher performance, with support for real-time ray tracing and artificial intelligence computing power of up to 67 TOPS.
The main innovations arrive precisely on the AI front: the Lunar Lake family is in fact equipped with one NPU equipped with 6 neural computing units dedicated and up to 9 MB of cache capable of delivering 48 TOPS. In short, Lunar Lake’s combined AI computing capabilities reach up to 120 TOPS, between CPU, GPU and NPU.
The new Lunar Lake platform integrates support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe Gen 5 and Gen 4 protocols, as well as improved security systems thanks to the Intel Partner Security Engine.
Comparison with AMD and Qualcomm
Intel has shared some data showing the performance of the new Lunar Lake family compared to the solutions adopted by the main competitors.
On the AI front, Intel states Stable Diffusion performance 1.4x higher than Snapdragonwhile from the point of view of graphics, as we have already mentioned, the Xe2 GPU should offer 1.5 times the performance compared to the past generation.
Finally, Intel declares superior performance per core compared to AMD Ryzen 7 8840U and Snapdragon
Intel Lunar Lake CPUs are expected to arrive for the third quarter of 2024 and the first devices equipped with the American company’s new SoC could appear as early as the summer.
As always we will keep you updated.
