Intel is allegedly advancing the launch of its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake-S" desktop processors to some time in Q3-2022, according to a report by Moore's Law is Dead. It was earlier believed to be a Q4 launch, much like "Alder Lake" was, in 2021. The report predicts the debut of "Raptor Lake" in the desktop segment in Q3-2022 (between July and September), with certain mobile SKUs expected toward the end of the year, in Q4. The Core "Raptor Lake-S" processor is built in the existing Socket LGA1700 package, and is being designed for compatibility with existing Intel 600-series chipset motherboards with a firmware update.

The "Raptor Lake-S" silicon is built on the existing Intel 7 (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin) node, and physically features eight "Raptor Cove" P-cores, along with sixteen "Gracemont" E-cores that are spread across four clusters. The chip has additional cache memory, too. Moore's Law is Dead predicts that the "Raptor Cove" P-core could introduce an IPC uplift in the region of 8 to 15 percent over the "Golden Cove" core, while the chip's overall multi-threaded performance could be anywhere between 30 to 40 percent over "Alder Lake-S," on account of not just increased IPC of the P-cores, but also eight additional E-cores.

Intel's Alder Lake family is apparently still growing and the latest leaks suggest that a new addition is on its way in the shape of the Alder Lake-N. This should be the most basic SKU of Alder Lake CPUs, as it'll only have "small" Gracemont cores and no Golden Cove cores at all, unlike all of its other siblings. The oddities don't stop here though, as these new CPUs won't even have any PCIe lanes from the CPU itself, beyond the chipset interconnect.

It's possible that these will be some kind of embedded parts, as Alder Lake-N is said to come with up to eight cores. The limitation of PCIe lines, of which apparently only a total of nine will be offered, is something that might make it less appealing for embedded systems, especially if it requires a separate chipset. It's possible that Intel has designed these new SKUs for Chromebooks or other budget notebooks, but they'd have to be priced extremely affordably to be appealing, considering how cheap Chromebooks already are. The chips are also said to feature a full GT1 Gen 12.2 GPU with up to 32 EUs, so graphics performance should at least be comparable to Alder Lake-S desktop parts. We'd hazard a guess that the GPU clocks will be a lot lower though.

Large on-die caches are expected to be a major contributor to IPC and gaming performance. The upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor triples its on-die last-level cache using the 3D Vertical Cache technology, to level up to Intel's "Alder Lake-S" processors in gaming, while using the existing "Zen 3" IP. Intel realizes this, and is planning a massive increase in on-die cache sizes, although spread across the cache hierarchy. The next-generation "Raptor Lake-S" desktop processor the company plans to launch in the second half of 2022 is rumored to feature 68 MB of "total cache" (that's AMD lingo for L2 + L3 caches), according to a highly plausible theory by PC enthusiast OneRaichu on Twitter, and illustrated by Olrak29_.

The "Raptor Lake-S" silicon is expected to feature eight "Raptor Cove" P-cores, and four "Gracemont" E-core clusters (each cluster amounts to four cores). The "Raptor Cove" core is expected to feature 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache, an increase over the 1.25 MB L2 cache per "Golden Cove" P-core of "Alder Lake-S." In a "Gracemont" E-core cluster, four CPU cores share an L2 cache. Intel is looking to double this E-core cluster L2 cache size from 2 MB per cluster on "Alder Lake," to 4 MB per cluster. The shared L3 cache increases from 30 MB on "Alder Lake-S" (C0 silicon), to 36 MB on "Raptor Lake-S." The L2 + L3 caches hence add up to 68 MB. All eyes are now on "Zen 4," and whether AMD gives the L2 caches an increase from the 512 KB per-core size that it's consistently maintained since the first "Zen."

Armed with 6 "Golden Cove" P-cores, 8 "Gracemont" E-cores, high clock speeds, and clever enough power-management to fit inside a "halo-class" notebook, the new Intel Core i9-12900HK "Alder Lake" offers multi-threaded performance riving HEDT processors, beating AMD's first-gen Ryzen Threadripper 1950X 16-core/32-thread processor, according to an early performance review by Lab501. The 14-core/20-thread processor scores 6741 points, compared to the reference score of 6670 points for the 1950X. The processor ends up roughly 16.8% faster than the previous-generation i9-11980HK that's based on the 8-core/16-thread "Tiger Lake-H" silicon. Stress tests show that the chip can sustain boost frequencies of nearly 4.99 GHz on the P-cores, with 113 W package power draw, and core temperatures of 99°C.

Intel released the substantive portion of its 12th Generation Core, Pentium, and Celeron desktop processors to the retail market, based on the latest "Alder Lake" architecture. The part that's making the most waves is the Core i5-12400, a 6-core/12-thread part that only features "Golden Cove" P-cores (no E-cores or the software-optimization issues they bring). The i5-12400/F, i5-12500, and i5-12600, are based on the "H0" die of "Alder Lake-S," which physically only features six "Golden Cove" P-cores, no "Gracemont" E-core clusters, and only has 18 MB of L3 cache. The larger "C0" die is used across the i5-12600K, Core i7 and Core i9 chips, physically has 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores, 8 "Gracemont" E-cores across two E-core clusters, and 30 MB of L3 cache. It's important to lay out this piece of information to understand what Intel did with the new Core i5-12490F processor that's spotted in markets across Asia.

Apparently Intel is sitting on a pile of "C0" dies, and decided to create the i5-12490F. This chip has 6 "Golden Cove" P-cores, no E-cores, but 20 MB of L3 cache; and is based on a heavily cut-down "C0" silicon. As an "F" SKU, it also disables the iGPU on the silicon. The clocks set are 3.00 GHz nominal, and 4.60 GHz boost, compared to 2.50 GHz nominal, and 4.40 GHz boost of the i5-12400/F, and identical clock speeds to the i5-12500. It's quite puzzling how the "H0" based i5-12500 is differentiated from this chip, given its lower 18 MB L3 cache amount. The base power value is set at 65 W, with maximum turbo power at 117 W. The i5-12490F can hence be simulated using an i5-12600K.

AMD already declared the CPU core counts of its EPYC "Genoa" and "Bergamo" processors to top out at 96 and 128, respectively, a core-count believed to have been facilitated by the larger fiberglass substrate of the next-gen SP5 CPU socket, letting AMD add more 8-core "Zen 4" chiplets, dubbed CPU complex dies (CCDs). Until now, AMD has used the chiplet as a common component between its EPYC enterprise and Ryzen desktop processors, to differentiate CPU core counts.

A fascinating theory that hit the rumor-mill, indicates that the company might leverage 5 nm (TSMC N5) carve out larger CCDs with up to 16 "Zen 4" CPU cores. Half of these cores are capped at a much lower power budget, essentially making them efficient-cores. This is a concept AMD appears to be carrying over from its 15-Watt class mobile processors, which see the CPU cores operate under an aggressive power-management. These cores still turn out a reasonable amount of performance, and are functionally identical to the ones on 105 W desktop processors with a relaxed power budget.

The upcoming Intel Core i5-12400 processor could be a game changer in the mid-range, according to an early gaming performance review by Igor's Lab, which landed simulated the chip by disabling the E-cores, and setting the right clock speeds and power values. Based on the smaller H0 silicon of "Alder Lake-S," which physically only features six "Golden Cove" CPU cores, and no "Gracemont" E-core clusters, the i5-12400 ticks at 2.50 GHz, and 4.40 GHz boost frequency, with 65 W base power, and 117 W maximum turbo power (MTP).

Testing reveals that this MTP value lends the processor some stellar energy-efficiency numbers, and the chip strikes a performance/Watt sweetspot. Igor's Lab, however, recommends that for the best efficiency, the i5-12400 should be paired with DDR4 memory. In its testing, DDR4-3733 (with Gear 1) was used. Gaming benchmarks put out by Igor's Lab shows that the Core i5-12400 trades blows with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X "Zen 3" in a number of games, beating it in several of them by virtue of higher IPC of the "Golden Cove" cores, and beating the i7-11700K "Rocket Lake" 8-core/16-thread processor at a fraction of its power-draw. A word of caution, though, is that the i5-12400 was simulated on a C0 silicon, possibly the i9-12900K, and the real i5-12400 die may not have the same refinements or electrical characteristics. Even with the E-core cluster disabled, the L3 cache size isn't the same (30 MB vs. 18 MB). Catch the review in the source link below.

The first 65 W Alder Lake desktop processors have recently surfaced including the i3-12100F, i5-12400F, and i7-12700F which are expected to launch in January. The i3-12100F and i5-12400F are expected to be the first Alder Lake-S processors without any Gracemont high-efficiency cores instead of relying solely on Golden Cove high-performance cores. The i3-12100F will feature 4 cores and 8 threads with a max boost speed of 4.3 GHz while the i5-12400F will include 6 cores and 12 threads running at a max clock speed of 4.4 GHz.

The i7-12700F will feature the same core configuration as the i7-12700KF just with lower clock speeds and a reduced TDP of 65 W compared to 125 W. The packaging for these three processors along with marketing materials have been leaked revealing that the retail versions will include the Laminar RM1 stock cooler. These new Alder Lake CPUs along with various other models are expected to launch sometime in January after CES 2022.

Intel's 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" silicon apparently comes in two variants based on core count. The first one is a larger variant with 8 P cores and 8 E cores, while the second variant is a visibly smaller die with only 6 P cores, no E cores. This was revealed by an MSI Insider video presentation where pictures of LGA1700 packages with the two die types were shown off.

MSI also confirmed die-sizes and dimensions of the two. The larger C0 die measures 10.5 mm x 20.5 mm, working out to 215.25 mm² area. The smaller H0 die measures 10.5 mm x 15.5 mm, and a die area of 162.75 mm². The H0 silicon completely lacks "Gracemont" E-core clusters, and physically features six "Golden Cove" P cores. It's possible that given the 3 MB L3 slice size on the larger C0 silicon, the smaller H0 silicon physically features 18 MB of shared L3 cache.

Intel's upcoming Alder Lake-S lineup of processors is shaping up to be a rather good generational improvement. With wonders of the Intel 7 process, previously called 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin (10ESF), the processor lineup will deliver new hybrid technology, mixing new big and small cores into one package. Today, some new CPU-Z validation tests have shown up for the Intel Core i5-12600K CPU, which directly replaces the previous Core i5-11600K Rocket Lake model. With six high-performance Golden Cove and four efficient Gracemont cores, the Core i5-12600K CPU is a ten-core design with 16 threads. And compared to the 6C/12T i5-12600K CPU, the performance is much higher.

According to CPU-Z scores, the new Alder Lake processor scored 7220 and 7156 points for a multi-threaded benchmark in two tests. Compare this to the previous-generation model, which scores 4731 points, and the new chip is almost 50% faster. According to CPU-Z, the new CPU achieved this while running at a boost frequency of 4.5 GHz to 4.7 GHz.

An alleged Intel Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake-S" sample is shown beating the 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX HEDT processor at AMD's favorite benchmark, Cinebench R23, in its multi-threaded (nT) test. At this point it's not known whether the i9-12900K is overclocked, but the CPU-Z instance in the screenshot reads 5.30 GHz, which could very well be the processor's stock Thermal Velocity Boost frequency. The sample scored upward of 30000 points, putting it above the Threadripper 2990WX reference score in Cinebench.

The 2990WX is based on the "Zen+" microarchitecture, and released in 2018, but is a 32-core/64-thread chip that should have ripped through this rendering workload. The i9-12900K, on the other hand, has eight "Golden Cove" performance cores that have HyperThreading, in addition to 8 "Gracemont" efficiency cores that lack HTT. This benchmark was run on Windows 10, which lacks awareness of the Intel Thread Director, a hardware component that optimizes utilization of the two kinds of CPU cores. Windows 11 is known to feature better awareness of hybrid core architectures. The i9-12900K sample is possibly installed on a Gigabyte Z690 AORUS Ultra motherboard, and has 32 GB of DDR5-5200 memory (two modules, logically four 40-bit channels).

Here's the first picture of Intel's upcoming mainstream desktop processor socket, the LGA1700, which was until now only seen in renders or technical drawings. The socket is characterized by a more rectangular contact pad than previous Intel sockets. The Socket H family (LGA115x and LGA1200) that ruled Intel MSDT sockets for over a decade, has a largely square pad. Intel's HEDT sockets such as the LGA1366, LGA2011 and LGA2066, on the other hand, had a rectangular pad, though not as pronounced (slender) as the LGA1700.

From the looks of it, the retention mechanism of the LGA1700 appears similar to that of Socket H and most other Intel LGA sockets (though dissimilar from the LGA2011/LGA2066). In its client desktop avatar, the LGA1700 has 100 unused pins. This is because the socket is physically identical to the LGA1800, which is speculated to be left for future generations of Intel processors with additional power or I/O pins. The Z-height of LGA1700 is lower than that of Socket H, which entails a major change in the retention module design of most aftermarket CPU cooling solutions.

Intel's upcoming Core i7-12700 (non-K) processor matches AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X in the Geekbench 5 benchmark. The i7-12700 is a locked 65 W TDP processor with 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores, and 4 "Gracemont" E-cores. 4 fewer E-cores, lower clocks, and lack of features such as Thermal Velocity Boost, is what differentiates the 12th Gen Core i7 from 12th Gen Core i9.

The Core i7-12700 allegedly scored 1595 points single-thread, along with 10170 points in the multi-threaded test. This puts it within 5% of the Ryzen 7 5800X in the single-threaded test (averaged from the Geekbench database), and within 2% in the multi-threaded. One has to consider that the i7-12700 lacks an unlocked multiplier, but should Intel 600-series chipset motherboards come with the same power-limit unlocks as the 400-series and 500-series; more performance can be squeezed out.

When early benchmarks of the Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake-S" processor showing performance comparable to AMD's top 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X surfaced, we knew something was up. 8 Intel P-cores and 8 E-cores, are able to match 16 "Zen 3" cores that are all performance cores. Apparently Intel is able to turn its P-core deficit around by taking a wacky approach. First, the 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores themselves offer significantly higher IPC than "Zen 3." Second, the 8 "Gracemont" E-cores aren't as "slow" as conventional wisdom would suggest.

Intel in its Architecture Day presentation put out some astounding numbers that help support how 8 big + 8 little cores are able to perform in the league of 16 AMD big cores. Apparently, on "Alder Lake-S," the 8 "Gracemont" E-cores enjoy a lavish power budget, and are able to strike an incredible performance/Watt sweet-spot. Intel claims that the "Gracemont" E-core offers 40% higher performance at ISO power than a "Skylake" core (Intel's workhorse P-core for desktops until as recently as 2020); which means it consumes 40% less power at comparable performance.

The 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" microarchitecture will see Intel unify its desktop- and mobile processor IP, back to the way things were up to the 9th Gen. With its post-14 nm silicon fabrication nodes in their infancy, Intel had diverged the client processor IP across its 10th and 11th Gen Core. With 10th Gen, the company introduced "Ice Lake" for ultra-portable platforms (28 W and below), while retaining 14 nm "Comet Lake" for mainstream notebooks (28 W to 45 W); while keeping desktop exclusively with 14 nm "Comet Lake." For 11th Gen, the story is mostly similar. Cutting-edge 10 nm "Tiger Lake" now covers all mobile categories, while desktop receives an IPC upgrade, thanks to the 14 nm "Rocket Lake." The 12th Gen will see a common microarchitecture, "Alder Lake," span across all client segments, from 7 W ultra mobile, to 125 W enthusiast desktop.

This, however, doesn't mean that Intel has a one-size fits all silicon that it can carve SKUs out of. The company has developed as many as three physical dies based on "Alder Lake," which vary in CPU core counts, the size of the iGPU, and other on-die components. "Alder Lake" is a hybrid processor with a combination of larger "Golden Cove" P-cores, and smaller "Gracemont" E-cores. The P-cores are spatially large, and along with their L3 cache slices, take up a large share of the compute portion of the silicon. The E-cores come in clusters of 4 cores each.

With qualification samples of the upcoming Intel Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake-S" processors and companion Socket LGA1700 motherboards hitting the black-market, expect a deluge of benchmarks on social media. One such that stands out makes a fascinating claim that the i9-12900K beats AMD's current flagship Ryzen 9 5950X processor at Cinebench R20, which has been AMD's favorite multi-threaded benchmark. At stock speeds, with liquid cooling, the i9-12900K allegedly scores 810 points in the single-threaded test, and 11600 points in multi-threaded.

To put these numbers into perspective, a retail Ryzen 9 5950X scores 641 points in the single-threaded test, and 10234 points in multi-threaded, in our own testing. The i9-12900K is technically a 16-core processor, just like the 5950X, but half its cores are low-power "Gracemont." The "Alder Lake-S" chip appears to be making up ground on the single-threaded performance of the "Golden Cove" P-core, that's a whopping 25% higher than the "Zen 3" core on the 5950X. This is aided not just by higher IPC, but also the max boost frequency of 5.30 GHz for 1~2 cores, and 5.00 GHz "all-core" boost (for the P-cores).

Qualification samples (QS) of Intel's upcoming Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake-S" desktop processors just hit the black market for the equivalent of roughly USD $1,064 to $1,157 (6,500 to 7,500 RMB), in China. The processor maxes out the 10 nm silicon, offering 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores, and 8 "Gracemont" E-cores, along with 30 MB of L3 cache, a dual-channel DDR5 memory interface, in a hybrid processor setup. You can bag yourself this QS, but you'll need to find a compatible motherboard. "Alder Lake-S" debuts the new LGA1700 socket, Intel's first major change in the physical dimensions of its mainstream-desktop CPU socket since 2009, mandating a cooler update.

Intel will debut its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake-S" desktop processors either toward the end of 2021, or early 2022, introducing the LGA1700 socket, 600-series chipset, and more importantly, hybrid CPU core architecture to the desktop space. The 10 nm "Alder Lake-S" silicon features up to eight "Golden Cove" performance cores (P-cores), and up to eight "Gracemont" efficiency cores (E-cores), in a heterogenous CPU core setup rivaling Arm big.LITTLE. Specifications of the top Core i9, fairly-top Core i7, and mid-tier Core i5 parts were leaked to the web on Chinese social media.

The 12th Gen Core lineup will be led, predictably, by the Core i9-12900K, which succeeds the i9-11900K with a maxed out 8+8 (P+E) configuration, unlocked multipliers, the most cache, and the highest clock speeds. The P-cores ("Golden Cove" cores) are clocked up to 5.30 GHz (1-2 cores boost), and up to 5.00 GHz all-core / 8 cores; while the E-cores ("Gracemont" cores), are clocked up to 3.90 GHz (1-4 cores boost), with 3.70 GHz all-core / 8 cores boost. The total L3 cache on the silicon is 30 MB. The i9-12900K has a TDP of 125 W (PL1), with 228 W PL2. Intel will introduce several new overclocking features, including multiple memory gear ratios.

Armed with up to 8 "Golden Cove" high-performance CPU cores and up to 8 "Gracemont" low-power cores in a hybrid x86 processor setup, the "Alder Lake" silicon enables Intel to carve out some interesting SKUs in the mobile space, by creating numerous combinations of the big and small CPU core counts, and more importantly, by adjusting the ratio of big cores to small ones. The two core types operate at significantly different performance/Watt bands, which allows Intel to target the various TDP-defined mobile processor SKU categories with just the right big:small core ratios, as revealed by a leaked "Alder Lake" mobile SKU roadmap, leaked to the web by HXL.

Intel is looking to spread the silicon across six mobile segments defined by TDP—the 5 W tablet/handheld; the 9 W ultra-thin, the 15 W mainstream tablet/laptop, the 28 W performance tablet/laptop, the 35-45 W thin enthusiast laptop, and the 45-55 W "muscle" laptop. With Intel recently announcing the discontinuation of its 1+4 (big+small) core "Lakefield" hybrid processor, its mantle in the 5 W segment will be picked up by "Alder Lake-M5," with 1 "Golden Cove" and 4 "Gracemont" cores. There will be two product tiers segmented by iGPU execution units (EUs), one with 48 EU, and the other with 64.

Intel's strategy toward increasing CPU core counts could be to dial up the counts of smaller low-power CPU cores, according to a "Moore's Law is Dead" leak about the next-generation "Raptor Lake" mainstream processor. The chip is said to have 8 larger high-performance cores, and a whopping 16 low-power cores. The eight bigger performance cores will be "Raptor Cove," the successor to "Golden Cove," featuring higher IPC and more instruction sets, although the report only references this as an enhancement to "Golden Cove." The sixteen smaller low-power cores, however, are expected to remain "Gracemont," carried over from "Alder Lake-S." The "Raptor Lake-S" processor is slated for a Holiday 2022 release, and being touted as a competitor to AMD's "Zen 4" based desktop processor.

Intel is likely targeting a Halloween (October 2021) launch for its 12th Generation Core "Alder Lake-S" desktop processors, along the sidelines of the next-generation Windows PC operating system, which is being referred to in the press as "Windows 11," according to "Moore's Law is Dead," a reliable source of tech leaks. This launch timing is key, as the next-gen operating system is said to feature significant changes to its scheduler, to make the most of hybrid processors (processors with two kinds of CPU cores).

The two CPU core types on "Alder Lake-S," the performance "Golden Cove," and the low-power "Gracemont" ones, operate in two entirely different performance/Watt bands, and come with different ISA feature-sets. The OS needs to be aware of these, so it knows exactly when to wake up performance cores, or what kind of processing traffic to send to which kind of core. Microsoft is expected to unveil this new-gen Windows OS on June 24, with RTX (retail) availability expected in Q4-2021.

Intel is preparing its 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processors to target not just desktop, but also notebook. The "Alder Lake-P" mobile processor will be Intel's second to implement a hybrid CPU core design (after "Lakefield"). Coelacanth Dream revealed the power level (PL) values of the three key variants of the "Alder Lake-P" silicon. Intel will create broadly three categories of mobile chips targeting specific notebook form-factors—15 W, 28 W, and 45 W. The "Alder Lake-U" 15 W chips are expected to have a PL1 value (interchangeable with the TDP marked on the tin), of 15 W, but its PL2 value, which enables the highest Turbo frequency, can be as high as 55 W.

The next category, the "Alder Lake-U" 28 W chips, have a PL2 value of 64 W. Lastly, the "Alder Lake-H" 45 W chip, which will go into notebooks of conventional thickness, is expected to have a PL2 value of a scorching 115 W. Unless we're mistaken, "Alder Lake-P" is a hybrid processor with up to 6 "Golden Cove" performance CPU cores, and up to 8 "Gracemont" low-power cores. The performance cores feature HyperThreading, and are AVX-512 capable. Unlike the desktop "Alder Lake-S," Intel is investing in a larger iGPU. Based on the Gen12 Xe LP graphics architecture, the iGPU of the "Alder Lake-P" could feature 96 execution units, compared to just 48 on the "Alder Lake-S."

Intel's upcoming Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" processors which debut in the second half of 2021, will feature up to 80 "Golden Cove" CPU cores, and not the previously rumored "Willow Cove." This was clarified by an Intel developer in a Linux Kernel code e-mail chain. "Golden Cove" CPU cores are more advanced than the "Willow Cove" cores found in current-generation Intel products, such as the client "Tiger Lake" processors. Intel stated that "Golden Cove" introduces an IPC gain over "Willow Cove" (expressed as "ST perf"), increased AI inference performance from an updated GNI component, "network and 5G perf," which is possibly some form of network stack acceleration, and additional security features.

Over in the client segment, the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processor debuts a client variant of "Golden Cove." The "Alder Lake-S" silicon features eight "Golden Cove" cores serving as the "big" performance cores, next to eight "little" low-power "Gracemont" cores. The client- and server implementations of "Golden Cove" could differ mainly in the ISA, with the client chip receiving a slightly skimmed AVX-512 and DLBoost instruction-sets, with only client-relevant instructions. The server variant, in addition being optimized for a high core-count multi-core topology; could feature a more substantial AVX-512 and DLBoost implementation relevant for HPC use-cases.

As we are getting closer to the launch of Intel's next-generation Alder Lake processors, more information is getting leaked. Today, thanks to the leaked presentation slide, we have some more details regarding Intel's Alder Lake offerings in the laptop sector. As a reminder, Alder Lake uses a hybrid approach to core configuration with the similar mindset Arm's big.LITTLE works. There are a few smaller cores for processing smaller tasks that don't need much power and, of course, there are a few big cores that are used for heavyweight processing as some advanced applications require. The small cores are going to be based on the Gracemont microarchitecture, while the big one will use the Golden Cove design.

Thanks to @9550pro on Twitter, we have a slide that showcases 19 different Alder Lake configurations for the laptop segment. At the very bottom, there are configurations with a TDP of just five Watts. That is achieved by having just one big, four smaller cores, 48 EU Gen 12 GPU and that is meant for the tablet segment. Going up, we have different ranges depending on the application device, and the highest end is a chip with 55 Watts of power. That model has eight small and eight big cores, combined with 32 EUs of Gen 12 graphics. All models include integrated graphics. The variations of big and small cores have allowed Intel to have as many as 19 different SKUs, that cover every segment needed, by simply balancing the core count. You can check out the rest of the models below for yourself.

Intel published Linux kernel driver patches that reference a new CPU microarchitecture, codenamed "Lunar Lake." The patch comments refer to "Lunar Lake" as a client platform, and VideoCardz predicts that it could succeed "Meteor Lake." the microarchitecture that follows "Alder Lake," which was recently announced by Intel.

Targeting both mobile and desktop platforms, "Alder Lake" will herald a new 1,700-pin LGA socket for the client desktop, and debut hybrid CPU cores on the form-factor. Expected to be built on a newer silicon fabrication node, such as the 10 nm SuperFin, the chip will combine high-performance "Golden Cove" big cores, with "Gracemont" low-power cores. Its commercial success will determine if Intel continues to take the hybrid-core approach to client processors with future "Meteor Lake" and "Lunar Lake," or whether it will have sorted out its foundry woes and build "Lunar Lake" with a homogeneous CPU core type. With "Alder Lake" expected to debut toward the end of 2021 and "Meteor Lake" [hopefully] by 2022, "Lunar Lake" would only follow by 2023-24.