Intel announced the first details of its next generation of processors Core Ultra (Meteor Lake), which will hit the market before the end of 2023. The chips are characterized by the use of the Intel 4 manufacturing process – which promises higher performance without sacrificing power consumption – as well as the integration of a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for artificial intelligence tasks.
At the start of Intel Innovation Day, the manufacturer announced that the Core Ultra processors would be presented on December 14th. The new chips move away from the traditional arrangement and Adopt a design with chiplets for each component, similar to what we see with SoCs from manufacturers like Qualcomm or AMD. According to Intel, this methodology one of the biggest architectural changes in 40 years and will be the spearhead for the processors of the future.
In this design, the Meteor Lake architecture is divided into four tiles, each focused on a specific area (CPU, GPU, I/O SoC). The CPU consists of P (performance) and E (efficiency) cores in a combination similar to current processors. The novelties in this generation are the electronic cores (s) responsible for performing tasks with lower energy consumption and they can work independently.
For its part, the GPU tile has features that would allow games to run at a reasonable frame count. In terms of performance, the new Xe LPG architecture doubles the efficiency of the previous generation Iris Xe. Although we don’t get the benefits that a dedicated card offers, The Intel Core Ultra GPU receives support for XeSS the intelligent scaling solution that offers a significant increase in frames per second.
Artificial intelligence and low consumption: the keys to the new Core Ultra
One of the key features of the Core Ultra is the presence of a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), the first on an Intel chip. He The coprocessor is designed to run artificial intelligence workloads that require higher quality or efficiency and would normally run in the cloud. The NPU can connect to AI applications to execute tasks locally, speeding up the process.
Although Intel did not provide specific examples, it did mention that the new disaggregated Core Ultra architecture provides a balance of power and performance in artificial intelligence processes.
- The GPU features performance parallelism, ideal for media-based AI, 3D applications and rendering processes.
- The NPU is a dedicated, low-power AI engine for sustainable AI and AI offloading.
- The CPU has a fast response that is ideal for light AI tasks with single inference and low latency.
The launch of Core Ultra could be a turning point for Intel. The manufacturer is not only installing an AI coprocessor in its processors for the first time, but is also relying on one of its competitors. Three of the four tiles that make up the chip will use TSMC silicon One of them was manufactured using a low-consumption process and serves as a central communication bridge.
Unfortunately, Intel hasn’t released any information about specifications, performance testing, or configurations of its upcoming chips. So far the only model that has leaked is a Core Ultra 5 1003Hwhich will arrive with up to 18 threads and a GPU with 128 computing units.
The new processors Core Ultra will be officially launched on December 14th and marks the end of the “Core i” nomenclature that the manufacturer used for more than 15 years.
