Intel is going to release its 14th Generation Core series with the code name Meteor Lake processors for laptops & Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs for desktops. Intel Meteor Lake will soon be seen in several new laptops of the 14th-Gen. However, people still do not know why the company decided to release Meteor Lake processors only for notebooks in 2023.
What Is Intel Meteor Lake?
It is the code name of Intel for the 14th gen of Intel Core mobile processors. Intel Meteor Lake will be released on December 14, 2023 to the market.
More Details About Intel Meteor Lake:
Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Client Computing Group’s Vice President and General Manager, said that Meteor Lake desktop is expected to be available in the next year. It is expected that the alleged Socket V1 & 800-series chipset platform will be shared by Meteor Lake-S and Arrow Lake-S processors.
Mainboards that are developed for Arrow Lake-S will be available in Core i7 & Core i9 variants for enthusiasts & gamers and will offer sophisticated voltage regulating modules for providing maximum performance, and it will cost as per that. It is important to know if advanced 800-series motherboards will ever be required for Meteor Lake-S CPUs in the alleged configuration.
‘Intel 4’ Manufacturing Process:
It is the largest innovation of Intel in the last 40 years. This new microprocessor architecture marks an inflection point for this company, and makes the Meteor Lake CPUs a big deal. It is also one of the reasons Intel has rebranded the processors. Compared to the Intel 7 process that people used earlier, the power efficiency of this new Intel 4 manufacturing procedure is 20% better. This Intel 7 process was available on Raptor Lake of twelfth Generation and Alder Lake of thirteenth generation processors. In order to bring a 20% power reduction with Meteor Lake, the company leverages machine learning & AI technologies.
SoC, Compute, and Graphics tiles come with individual functions — the tile architecture was innovated upon these. In order to change the game on Meteor Lake, the company has encompassed together several latest microprocessor architectural innovations.
High-density inter-die connection is provided by the company’s Foveros 3D Packaging between the graphics, compute, & SoC tiles. With the help of the latest design of Intel, creating different processors can be simplified. Besides, the manufacturing process has become more efficient because the latest design brings higher yields.
Optimizations are done on the OS level also. The Meteor Lake also comes with low-power island E-Cores. Besides, it includes improved compute tile P-Cores & E-Cores. A new NPU is used to accelerate on-device AI.
Supercharged Intel Arc Graphics:
Intel Meteor Lake comes with new & improved integrated graphics. Now, the company is trying to bring the power of the Arc graphics architecture to the smartphone CPUs. If it happens, it will be a huge advancement in technology, as Intel 14th-Gen laptop CPUs’ integrated graphics performance will become faster.
Intel Arc graphics is built on the Xe LPG microarchitecture, and it is part of Meteor Lake processors. In addition, a dedicated graphics tile exists on each Meteor Lake processor, which contains the Intel Arc graphics. Besides, the new Xe Media Engine has AV1 support as well as variable rate shading. The DX12 API performance has become competitive now, with an integrated GPU that can run AAA games ( i.e. Forza Horizon 5) at playable frame rates on 1080p.
Its GPU supports real-time ray tracing, a big innovation in the 3D graphics space. Moreover, this GPU is compatible with 8K resolution, up to 60Hz. HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1 & other latest standards are supported by this GPU. Therefore, on DisplayPort 1.4, only one graphics card manufacturer, the Nvidia RTX 40 Series is still stuck.
The new Arc-powered GPU enables you to supercharge the gaming or content creation experience. Hence, you should know that ray-tracing is not comparable to the Nvidia RTX 40 Series which is a more powerful dedicated graphics. The Intel Arc graphics chip, which is able to make up the GPU of Intel Meteor Lake, is highly competitive.
Low Power Island E-Cores:
The previous processors of the company already included a hybrid P-core + E-Core architecture. Therefore, they decided to switch to the dedicated cores for performance & efficiency. Low Power Island E-Cores, called LP E-Cores, are now also implemented by Meteor Lake.
The Crestmont cores are similarly designed as the E-Cores that are available on the compute tile. But the designs are different. Besides, you can see the LP E-Cores placed in the SOC tile.
In order to make it more efficient, these Low Power Island E-Cores are built for different types of tasks where P-Cores do not have to be active. An Integrated low-power AI engine is included in the LP E-core section and can support different light workloads.
For instance, you can see any background work running on the low-power E-Cores. The company showed a pre-production laptop featuring Meteor Lake CPU, in which a movie runs in a loop. Hence, the LP E-cores were seen as active.
Suppose a workload needs more compute performance. If it happens, it is possible to assign the task to the E-Cores & P-Cores. When a compute-heavy application runs, the P-Cores are assigned to the compute-heavy task by Intel Meteor Lake CPUs. There are a few low-utilization background apps that can run on the compute tile E-core or SoC tile LP E-cores. Along with the addition of low-power island E-cores, the company has made Intel Meteor Lake more versatile & hybrid than older-generation processors.
Hybrid Tile Architecture:
These processors come with an evolved hybrid architecture consisting of P-Cores & E-Cores in the compute tiles and dedicated SoC, Graphics, & IO tiles. Now, let’s learn about these tiles.
- The Graphics tile is able to contain the company’s Arc graphics used to boost 3D performance on the Meteor Lake CPU. Besides, this tile contains new Intel Xe LPG graphics, which are the reasons behind the high-performance graphics acceleration.
- The SoC tile features a new NPU to boost AI & low-power island E-cores. It includes the Silicon Security Engine and so on.
- The IO tile is the reason behind PCI Express ordering. Hence, the IO fabric has components for WiFi & Bluetooth, PCI Express, USB4, Thunderbolt, etc.
- The Compute tile is something where you can see the new Redwood Cove Performance (P) cores & Crestmont Efficiency (E) Cores. Depending on the workload, each computational effort is handled as well as shared between the P-cores & E-cores.
NPU AI Engine:
Intel says that AI or artificial intelligence is growing rapidly in recent times and has become the technology of today instead of the future.
The company is trying to bring multiple advancements to Intel Meteor Lake CPUs, which the new NPU powers. Previously, we knew that artificial intelligence would be crucial in Intel’s 14th Gen CPUs. With this new NPU, the company is trying to bring AI to recent computers to open up new possibilities. Earlier, Artificial intelligence-based tasks were done on the cloud. But, it is possible to do these tasks currently on-device.
Typically, when you want AI to complete any task on your behalf, you need to give it the data that it requires for the prompt. Now, you will be able to do things on the device itself. Intel is bringing AI to the PC with Meteor Lake. There are several advantages:
- Lower latency & running costs
- No more slow-downs caused by internet problems
- Improved privacy & security
- Using artificial intelligence is easier.
The company has made Intel Meteor Lake CPUs a power efficient platform that is mainly built for the AI era. Multiple new chances open up with it. These processors are equipped with an on-device Silicon Security Engine. It helps to make sure that your data is protected when NPU-powered on-device artificial intelligence-based platforms are used. The company says that Intel Meteor Lake CPUs will come with advanced security options because of it. Due to the NPU in 14th-gen Meteor Lake CPUs, people will soon get to see several on-device AI enhancements.
Wi-Fi 7 5Gbps & Bluetooth LE Audio:
Wi-Fi 7 is now getting introduced in these latest processors and bringing a new connectivity standard. This connectivity can boost speed, reliability, and lower latency. Wi-Fi 7 is compatible with 5Gbps speeds, with GCMP-256 encryption. Additionally, it is compatible with the new 6GHz band that can reduce latency up to 60% lower than Wi-Fi 6.
Even Intel Bluetooth LE Audio will be seen in the 14th Gen Meteor Lake processors. It can feature multiple new benefits such as shared listening, improved accessibility with hearing aids, etc. Bluetooth LE Audio needs less power than the previous Bluetooth standards. And it also brings superior quality with lower latency.
A new LC3 Codec is available in Intel Bluetooth LE Audio. The Codec helps to improve listening quality at lower bit rates than the SBC codec, which people used in old Bluetooth standards. It comes with lower power & bandwidth requirements. Therefore, the new wireless audio products that it will support, could bring enhanced battery life.
New Branding & Variants:
Intel Meteor Lake introduces the latest branding update of Intel. It reduces the ‘i’ from Intel Core processor model names. In order to mark the monumental shift to a newer manufacturing process, it has been done.
This new branding is going to give names to the Meteor Lake CPUs under the new naming scheme. However, the company has announced only the architecture, not the variants. This part will be updated later. As per the revised CPU model names, these are called:
Base Variants:
- Core 3
- Core 5
- Core 7
- Core 9
Ultra Variants:
- Core Ultra 5
- Core Ultra 7
- Core Ultra 9
In Intel Meteor Lake, the company has implemented Redwood Cove P-Cores & Crestmont E-Cores, which are more efficient. The latest processors of Intel are using a hybrid architecture that features particular cores for several tasks – the P-Cores & E-Cores. The P-Cores indicate performance cores, whereas E-Cores mean efficiency cores.
‘Core Ultra’ variants are very fast, and we can easily understand it by the suffix terms. All the successors of H or HX series processors, such as Intel Core i9-13980HX will be under the new Intel Core Ultra 9 branding.
14th-generation Is A Stopgap For Meteor Lake:
While Meteor Lake will launch on December 14 for laptops, October is the expected arrival time of the 14th-generation Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs. It is not the first time that the company has replaced a generation of CPUs within a very short period. In the year 2017, the company launched its 7th-generation Kaby Lake chips in 2017. And after 9 months, it replaced the version with 8th-generation Coffee Lake chips.
However, the 7th Generation was a complete refresh of 6th-generation Skylake CPUs. It is almost the same as people are getting the refresh of 13th-generation Raptor Lake CPUs. Meteor Lake will come to the desktop also. In case, the company brands Meteor Lake laptop & Raptor Lake Refresh desktop CPUs as 14th-generation, it could confuse you. Additionally, it would be more confusing if the company added Meteor Lake desktop into the mix as 14th- or 15th-generation chips. Instead, as Meteor Lake can be branded Intel Core Ultra Series 1, its desktop version is able to be launched without any confusion regarding what chips are used in what products.
Why Is Meteor Lake Taking Longer To Get To The Desktop?
Production is the reason due to which Meteor Lake takes longer to get to the desktop. Four different chips are used by the top-end Meteor Lake chip. These chips consist of the CPU cores, GPU and IO & SoC tiles. The CPU cores are built on Intel 4, whereas the GPU is built on TSMC’s 5nm. And the tiles are built on TSMC’s 6nm process.
On the Intel 4 process, this chip will be the first one to be manufactured. Production is not so quick to launch for desktops & laptops at a time. Later, the company can achieve a high amount of Meteor Lake chips that are made without the use of more materials.
The enhanced efficiency of Intel Meteor Lake is essential for laptops, and Raptor Lake is already present in desktops. So, if the company has to select between laptops and desktops, it will go with laptops. Although Meteor Lake might be faster than the Raptor Lake Refresh, it will not be so impressive to justify the high price tag. As Intel 4 is new, probably creating Meteor Lake will be costly. Eventually, the price will reduce, resulting in making Meteor Lake simpler to launch at a better price.
Can It Be A Game?
Along with the ray-tracing units & up to 8 Xe cores on the chip, the company says that Meteor Lake will be able to add its Intel Arc Graphics. This “Xe LPG” GPU is capable of delivering performance up to 2 times better per watt of Xe LP. It was twice the performance of 11th Gen Intel UHD per watt. These processors are compatible with Intel’s XeSS for the first time on integrated graphics to boost frame rates. Although there is no proof of any performance number, the company says that the GPU is capable of running at a much lower minimum voltage, and reaching a higher maximum clock speed, compared to previous iGPUs.
Conclusion:
The Innovation 2023 event was recently held, where Intel showcased its Meteor Lake CPUs with the new Core Ultra branding. In this article, we have covered all the details about the Intel Meteor Lake, like when it will arrive, and other details about the processor. Still, if you have further queries, you can ask us via comments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q What Generation is Intel Meteor Lake?
The upcoming model will be of the 14th Generation.
What are the features of Intel Meteor Lake?
These processors use an evolved hybrid architecture, which consists of P-Cores & E-Cores in the compute tile. In addition, these will include Graphics, dedicated SoC, and IO tiles.
What is after Intel Meteor Lake?
Arrow Lake will come after Meteor Lake.
