Monday, February 6th 2023
Intel Meteor Lake to Feature 50% Increase in Efficiency, 2X Faster iGPU
Intel's upcoming Meteor Lake processor family is supposedly looking good with the new performance/efficiency targets. According to the @OneRaichu Twitter account, we have a potential performance estimate for the upcoming SKUs. As the latest information notes, Intel's 14th-generation Meteor Lake will feature around a 50% increase in efficiency compared to the 13th-generation Raptor Lake designs. This means that the processor can use half the power at the same performance target at Raptor Lake, increasing efficiency. Of course, the design also offers some performance improvements besides efficiency that are significant and are yet to be shown. The new Redwood Cove P-cores will be combined with the new Crestmont E-cores for maximum performance inside U/P/H configurations with 15-45 Watt power envelopes.
For integrated graphics, the source notes that Meteor Lake offers twice the performance of iGPU found on Raptor Lake designs. Supposedly, Meteor Lake will feature 128 EUs running 2.0+GHz compared to 96 EUs found inside Raptor Lake. The iGPU architecture will switch from Intel Iris to Xe-LPG 'Xe-MTL' family on the 14th gen models, confirming a giant leap in performance that iGPU is supposed to experience. Using the tile-based design, Intel combines the Intel 4 process for the CPU tile and the TSMC 5 nm process for the GPU tile. Intel handles final packaging for additional tuning, and you can see the separation below.
Sources:
@OneRaichu (Twitter), Thanks P4-630 (TPU Forums) For the Tip
For integrated graphics, the source notes that Meteor Lake offers twice the performance of iGPU found on Raptor Lake designs. Supposedly, Meteor Lake will feature 128 EUs running 2.0+GHz compared to 96 EUs found inside Raptor Lake. The iGPU architecture will switch from Intel Iris to Xe-LPG 'Xe-MTL' family on the 14th gen models, confirming a giant leap in performance that iGPU is supposed to experience. Using the tile-based design, Intel combines the Intel 4 process for the CPU tile and the TSMC 5 nm process for the GPU tile. Intel handles final packaging for additional tuning, and you can see the separation below.
75 Comments on Intel Meteor Lake to Feature 50% Increase in Efficiency, 2X Faster iGPU
Though the slides for this one just look like Intel has a normal and reduced L3 design (ie. Matisse/Renoir or Vermeer/Cezanne) targeted towards maybe some lower power SKUs.
Anyone know why Intel is using TSMC? Is it for the process node or for the capacity? Or is it to try and steal capacity away from AMD? In the last few months Intel has talked about selling their fab capacity to customers so I'm just confused as to why they'd be using TSMC...
They want to guarantee they can get product to market, and if their competing node is ready, then great, if not then the core product doesn't get delayed for the 20th time.
Sure, maybe Intel could do better than that in the end, but then again it's a bit risky using a pic like this when everyone's already seen the rumors of that limit.
Intel 4 (7nm) should be EUV
Worst case should make F sku's a lot cheaper too. And they probably ordered a certain volume for arc which is a dud and being able to swap that out with tiny graphics dies is a way to fill that capacity up
^and it's 100% the case for high end models of both 12-th/13-th gen and Ryzen 7000X line-up.
Best efficiency doesn't = "max. performance", or at least that's how I see it.
I had Renoir, it was underwhelming old Vega architecture hampered by DDR4 rather than LPDDR4 in so many models.
I have a few 6800U Lenovo models at work, they are choked by lousy bios and pathetic cooling - with so few other options with 6800U in the UK, I've written off RDNA2 for now.
128xe2 doesn't have to be amazing, it just has to be comparable to the 12CU RDNA2 IGP in Ryzen 6000-series. AMD's product is excellent but the very limited number of design wins mean that there aren't (m)any good options available to me and Intel is just a powerhouse in terms of sales and design wins. Every major brand will have 10+ different configs in various form factors and all the stupid no-name Amazon/AliExpress OEMs will throw a few hats into the ring too.
So yeah, Battlemage IGP doesn't have to be the clear winner, it just has to be good enough and widely-available. It'll take that over "theoretically better, but not available to me in the format I want, or at a reasonable price"
You may want to check out starlabs. They make laptops with 99whr batteries and 45w ryzen APUs. Their new 7940hs model is gonna be sweet....
us.starlabs.systems/
You can even get them with coreboot, if linux is your thing. It's gotta be pretty amazing. In my experience, having access to multiple configs, xe96 with LP4266 RAM is still a bit slower then the vega 7. It struggles in situations with a lot of lighting effects, to say noting of drivers. The radeon 680m is easily 2x fast as the vega 7, sometimes closer to 2.5x in newer games, and the 780m is supposed to me 20%+ faster then 680m. with 128eu, if intel doesnt get power usage under control, my best guess would be +40% over current xe, much better, but a far cry from the 780m.
But it would be something revolutionary if it works as it appears.
I have a couple of Yoga 7 Slims. Crippled by cTDP that caps boost at a meagre 19W. There's a full fan mode that sounds like a hair dryer and allows 26W boost for a short 2-3 minute duration but it cannot maintain it so it's utterly useless for gaming and seems to back itself down to 22-23W at most.
Most of the 6800U reviews looking at performance vs cTDP agree that the IGP needs 28W to really stretch its legs. at 19W it's fighting the CPU cores for power, or being bottlenecked by the CPU it stole power from :\ Nice, but as mentioned, it's a disaster because their only 6000-series laptop is a 16" chungus for £1365 starting price. There is absolutely no shortage of similar size/weight Intel options of similar or higher quality, lower price, and with vastly superior Nvidia dGPUs in them; If I'm willing to carry around a larger, heavier laptop I might as well get a dGPU for my troubles. £1000 gets you a decent 15.6" or 16" option with a 3050Ti or 3060. Sure, they use more power than an Star Labs Starfighter, but they're comparable size, weight, and have 4x the GPU power of the Radeon 680M.
IMO, IGPs are the realm of thin 12-14" 1kg portables, that's why I mentioned lack of design wins in the form factor I want. The 6800U is at its best in a 25-30W ultraportable. The 6800HS is very compelling in a 35W laptop, if you can find one in a thin&light rather than something chunkier with a dGPU.
They also have a 14" model that will likely receive an update for ryzen 7000 once the "u" chips come out. The 16" starfighter is 1.4kg, or just over 3 lbs. That's less then the 11" plastic chromebooks used in education. That's pretty light. The LG gram is 1.285 kg for the 16" model, and that is one of the lightest laptops out there. Even the 14" gram is still 1.2kg.
I think maybe your requirements are just a little unrealistic. In such small chassis you're not going to find many 28w APUs, all those intel models you pointed out will also be hamstrung by low TDP values. The other thing is if you get a 12-14" thin n light you're likely to end up with a sub 15w intel chip, like the m3 series. Do you guys not have the thinkpad x13? the hp envy x360? thinkbook 13s? thinkpad l13? thinkpad e13? I get not having choice, my ideal 14" machine will likely never exist, but dont you guys get any of the sub 14" AMD laptops? Can you import from the rest of europe?