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

Tigerick · Aug 22, 2022

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)	Lunar Lake	Panther Lake
Platform	Mobile H/U Only	Desktop Only	Desktop & Mobile H&HX	Mobile U Only	Mobile H
Process Node	Intel 4	Intel 20A	TSMC N3B	TSMC N3B	Intel 18A
Date	Q4 2023	Q1 2025 ?	Desktop-Q4-2024 H&HX-Q1-2025	Q4 2024	Q1 2026 ?
Full Die	6P + 8P	6P + 8E ?	8P + 16E	4P + 4E	4P + 8E
LLC	24 MB	24 MB ?	36 MB ?	12 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.)

Fjodor2001 · Jul 6, 2024

Geddagod said:
I mean they are literally desktop silicon. There is a possibility ARL-HX could be the desktop CPU tile with the mobile SOC tile and iGPU tile, but I would be pretty surprised if that was the case, I doubt it.
But I feel like this is just being pedantic lol.
I for one, think the rumor that the 8+32 desktop sku for ARL-R being canned, is very believable. And the focus on the NPU being improved on ARL-R also makes sense, I suppose they would try to improve it to the point it can hit the 40 TOPs requirement Microsoft wants?

I meant HX has different iGPU and NPU at least, plus different clocks, compared to the similar desktop CPUs. Then there is H series too. And both H and HX are mobile SKUs, and they'll have Arrow Lake Refresh.

Also, to not lose track of the background, the original claim which I commented on was "Arrow Lake refresh is just for desktop", which is simply not correct, if we are to believe the leaked Intel Mobile roadmap that I linked to previously.

cannedlake240 · Jul 6, 2024

Geddagod said:
I've always wondered why Intel has always dedicated so much area (and presumably a decent amount of power) towards core private caches (or even cache available to the core in general) compared to the competition

Presumably to drive high clocks and as C&C says, 'insulate' the cores from slow L3. Even Apple, known for bring generous with caches among mobile soc designers, is using smaller LLC compared to Intel(4mb L2 per core vs 6mb L2 + L3 on ARL).

Geddagod said:
I suppose they would try to improve it to the point it can hit the 40 TOPs requirement Microsoft wants?

ARL igp with XMX should have enough tops for Copilot features

TwistedAndy · Jul 6, 2024

Fjodor2001 said:
So 8P+32E+iGPU+Big NPU. Sounds nice. Would be lots of compute perf.

I do not think there will be any significant changes to the compute tile. It will still have an 8+16 configuration in the top desktop SKU.

The Arrow Lake Refresh will bring the updated SoC tile. It will probably have a bigger NPU and some changes to the memory controller and media engine.

SiliconFly said:
Agreed. But ST perf is still a function of IPC. A 14% IPC uplift can't translate to just 3% ST perf even after factoring in all assumed limitations (like some tile penalty, some clock regression, etc). Also, that 14% is LNL. ARL should be higher. ARL with just 3% overall ST perf increase is just plain wrong imho. Looks like he has a bad sample.

Probably, it was the engineering sample with much lower clocks.

mikk · Jul 6, 2024

cannedlake240 said:
Royal core is probably still a thing, just might not be ready for NVL launch timeframe and will arrive in the generation after nvl. LNC, while an improvement over Golden cove, is still behind Z5 and M4 P cores in area, power. Caches for example, LNC has the largest amount of combined core private and LLC among general purpose high performance cores, while being at PPC parity. Royal core or not they could definitely benefit from a "ground up" core

I'm not so sure about it anymore.

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Maybe another Ocean Cove repeat.

Geddagod · Jul 6, 2024

mikk said:
I'm not so sure about it anymore.

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Maybe another Ocean Cove repeat.

Lmfao I went back to the tweet you linked and saw this:

@SiliconFly what changed?

cannedlake240 said:
Presumably to drive high clocks

Their cache density is fine tbh

cannedlake240 said:
ARL igp with XMX should have enough tops for Copilot features

They would presumably want to use the NPU for that though, for lower power. If they really were fine with just using an iGPU, it would make no sense that LNL got a beefy NPU, nor would it make sense why other companies are also featuring so much silicon area, as well as marketing, on NPUs.

Fjodor2001 said:
I meant HX has different iGPU and NPU at least, plus different clocks, compared to the similar desktop CPUs.

I wouldn't be sure about that. I always assumed ARL-HX will still have the same SOC and iGPU tile as its desktop brethren.

Fjodor2001 said:
Also, to not lose track of the background, the original claim which I commented on was "Arrow Lake refresh is just for desktop", which is simply not correct, if we are to believe the leaked Intel Mobile roadmap that I linked to previously.

👍

Kepler_L2 · Jul 6, 2024

Geddagod said:
The "other core's" name has been leaked for a while. Panther Cove.

Pretty sure it got renamed.

cannedlake240 · Jul 6, 2024

Geddagod said:
They would presumably want to use the NPU for that though, for lower power. If they really were fine with just using an iGPU, it would make no sense that LNL got a beefy NPU, nor would it make sense why other companies are also featuring so much silicon area, as well as marketing, on NPUs.

Process difference is huge though, N6 soc and N4P for the new gpu tile. Add to that the xmx capability and the graphics tile might be more efficient, with exception of very light workloads. Maybe 10tops isn't enough even for that, which could explain the larger NPU on the refresh

SiliconFly · Jul 6, 2024

Geddagod said:
@SiliconFly what changed?

This

SiliconFly said:
Actually Rentable Units were based on very credible news. Long back, Dr. Ian Cutress wrote a detailed article in AnandTech regarding the original soft machine tech (link). Intel later acquired soft machines. Later, Intel filed a patent regarding the same in 2020 (link). Dr. Ian later mentioned that it appears that the project got shelved (in 2022). All these are credible news. Definitely not fake.

There has been no news or updates or credible leaks or rumors of RU since then. So, I'd say with a very high probability that it got canned. But there's a slim chance that it's still active and may debut with nova lake. Hard to say.

SiliconFly · Jul 6, 2024

Kepler_L2 said:
Pretty sure it got renamed.

Yep

DrMrLordX · Jul 6, 2024

Geddagod said:
A 14% IPC uplift can easily translate over to just 3% ST perf. It would just mean ARL is clocking at the low 5GHz range, rather than the rumored 5.7GHz. And the final version could end up being 5.7GHz, since he even says he has an ES2, but the final ST perf uplift is still likely to be pretty low, as in like 10% perhaps, at best.

There's still that leaked Intel slide from last year showing +5% ST and +20% MT over Raptor Lake at the same core count and PL value. Take out HT from the Arrow Lake P-cores and then use the perf numbers from the 14900k/ks before Intel implemented their stability fixes for UE5 (and other software) and that could still bear out. By the time Arrow Lake comes out it will look like a big uplift over Raptor Lake because of the new microcode updates and performance profiles gimping Raptor Lake performance, but that's not the only comparison that will matter . . .

Hulk · Jul 6, 2024

Could AMD or Intel develop a compiler specifically designed to work optimally with their specific CPU's? If so could such a compiler be used to compile compute heavy applications so that the OS would "pick" the correct version of the software upon installation?

The reason I ask is that it seems we are approaching a point where to optimize hardware, software might have to be compiled with the hardware architecture taken into account.

poke01 · Jul 6, 2024

one thing Intel is really good is supporting a wide array of encoders and decoders, no AMD or Nvidia GPU supports 10 bit 422 HEVC encode/decode.

So there are reasons for creators to get arrow lake CPUs over AMD.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1809715549166862487

DavidC1 · Jul 6, 2024

DrMrLordX said:
There's still that leaked Intel slide from last year showing +5% ST and +20% MT over Raptor Lake at the same core count and PL value. Take out HT from the Arrow Lake P-cores and then use the perf numbers from the 14900k/ks before Intel implemented their stability fixes for UE5 (and other software) and that could still bear out.

So it was showing those gains against 13900K.

Intel’s internal performance projection for Raptor Lake S Refresh and Arrow Lake S - How fast the CPU and iGP are expected to be | Exclusive | igor´sLAB

The Raptor Lake refresh is expected to arrive this year as the 14th CPU generation for the desktop. But the real successor, Arrow Lake-S for desktop, is also increasingly materializing along with the…

www.igorslab.de

RPL: 8x1.3 + 8 = 18.4
ARL Int: 8x1.14 + 8x1.3 = 19.52(6%)
ARL FP: 8x1.14 + 8x1.6 = 21.92(19%)

Those calculated gains seem to be not far off from Igorlabs leak. We really should not expect LNC in ARL to be higher than 14%. Nothing beside hopeful guesses seem to point ARL to be a monster.

I think when they are saying the design is now more flexible thus faster iterations can happen they are talking about primarily regarding server vs client. Remember the 8-wide decode for Granite Rapids?

Geddagod · Jul 6, 2024

cannedlake240 said:
Process difference is huge though, N6 soc and N4P for the new gpu tile. Add to that the xmx capability and the graphics tile might be more efficient, with exception of very light workloads. Maybe 10tops isn't enough even for that, which could explain the larger NPU on the refresh

Well, you answered your own question at the end there...

Kepler_L2 said:
Pretty sure it got renamed.

I'm sure Panther Cove being in Nova Lake rather than Panther Lake wasn't confusing at all

DavidC1 · Jul 6, 2024

SiliconFly said:
And one more thing...

This one is from the Intel P core team engineer. Lion Cove version that goes into Lunar Lake is different in several aspects compared to the version that goes into Arrow Lake later this year.

They may not even be close! That >20% uplift is still very much a possibility.

Yea you are likely way overestimating the impact. I made such mistakes before when they talked about Sandy Bridge's ring bus allowing much faster iterations. They had more versions for sure, but it didn't come faster. The rate of increase in complexity is so steep that they need such drastic design approach changes just so it doesn't take longer and longer to come out.

This time is different folks. It's not just Intel starting to lose steam this time. It's both Intel and AMD. AMD followed Intel to the crazy clock focus and they are following Intel with the disappointing 16% gain. They are going to need radical overhaul of designs/design teams to counterract ARM.

Looks like Intel has a path forward with the Austin team.

poke01 · Jul 6, 2024

poke01 said:
one thing Intel is really good is supporting a wide array of encoders and decoders, no AMD or Nvidia GPU supports 10 bit 422 HEVC encode/decode.

So there are reasons for creators to get arrow lake CPUs over AMD.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1809715549166862487

Coming back to this, Intel and Apple media engines are the only ones that support 422 10 bit HEVC.

FlameTail · Jul 6, 2024

poke01 said:
Coming back to this, Intel and Apple media engines are the only ones that support 422 10 bit HEVC.

And what's the significance of 422 10-bit HEVC?

poke01 · Jul 6, 2024

FlameTail said:
And what's the significance of 422 10-bit HEVC?

Its for videographers. Canon, Fujifilm cameras have the ability to shoot this

You got a RTX 4090 and a 7950x and still you won't be able to smoothly playback 422 without the media engine supporting these codecs.

Hitman928 · Jul 6, 2024

poke01 said:
Its for videographers. Canon, Fujifilm cameras have the ability to shoot this

You got a RTX 4090 and a 7950x and still you won't be able to smoothly playback 422 without the media engine supporting these codecs.

They can do 444 and 420 playback, just not 422. I don’t know how big a deal that is for creators outside of some professional cameras that use 422 (can they use 444? No idea).

Hulk · Jul 6, 2024

422/444 are editing formats, 420 is a delivery format.
I would characterize 422 as semi-pro and 444 as pro.
422 holds up much better in post than 420.

Det0x · Jul 7, 2024

Not sure if this already have been posted

https://twitter.com/x/status/1809987963582890343

poke01 · Jul 7, 2024

Det0x said:
Not sure if this already have been posted
View attachment 102543

https://twitter.com/x/status/1809987963582890343

This is not that bad. Intel first needs to fix their efficiency and I rather they do that than go all out in performance.

Kepler_L2 · Jul 7, 2024

poke01 said:
This is not that bad. Intel first needs to fix their efficiency and I rather they do that than go all out in performance.

Who says power consumption went down?

poke01 · Jul 7, 2024

Kepler_L2 said:
Who says power consumption went down?

there has to be some performance per watt improvement right?

I mean they’re jumping from Intel 7 to N3B.

Edit: Those numbers are at 250w, crazy. Wtf, is Intel doing?

KompuKare · Jul 7, 2024

poke01 said:
there has to be some performance per watt improvement right?

I mean they’re jumping from Intel 7 to N3B

Chiplets are not free of an energy penalty though. How much? That's anyone's guess for now.

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

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