Intel Alder Lake-N Makes an Appearance, Features Only Gracemont Cores

[TheLostSwede]

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.



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[Ruru]

So practically it's just a new gen Atom.

 

[Chrispy_]

Is this new silicon or are we still looking at harvested parts?

C0 is 8P+8E+32EU
H0 is 6P+0E+32EU

M0 was rumoured to be the Alder Lake U-series that have 2P+8E+96EU

 

[TheLostSwede]

Is this new silicon or are we still looking at harvested parts?

C0 is 8P+8E+32EU
H0 is 6P+0E+32EU

M0 was rumoured to be the Alder Lake U-series that have 2P+8E+96EU

Not sure, the details are from some Linux logs and drivers.

 

[Chrispy_]

Not sure, the details are from some Linux logs and drivers.

I doubt intel are selling big C0 dies as Gracemont-only netbook parts. H0 die doesn't even have E-cores at all.

I'm wondering if these are super-cheap things intended only for embedded devices or whether we're seeing the M0 dies in their first incarnation.

I'm only I'm interested because I really like the idea of an M0 die (fewer P-cores, loads of E-cores, beefy graphics). For most casual users that's by far the most relevant blend of resources and would be a killer deal if it could enable competent $499 laptops with 96EU graphics. Most budget IGP laptops from Intel have been underwhelming because if the CPU was cheap enough the IGP was woeful, and if the IGP was passable it was married to a flagship mobile CPU.

 

[Ruru]

I doubt intel are selling big C0 dies as Gracemont-only netbook parts. H0 die doesn't even have E-cores at all.

I'm wondering if these are super-cheap things intended only for embedded devices or whether we're seeing the M0 dies in their first incarnation.

I'm only I'm interested because I really like the idea of an M0 die (fewer P-cores, loads of E-cores, beefy graphics). For most casual users that's by far the most relevant blend of resources.

A hyperthreaded dualcore plus four Atom cores sounds great for a general use laptop for example if you ask me.

 

[Chrispy_]

A hyperthreaded dualcore plus four Atom cores sounds great for a general use laptop for example if you ask me.

Absolutely. I'm excited for this:

It's a small die so it should be cheap, power-efficient, and competent for everyday tasks and casual gaming. Given how much stuff your average user runs that is single-threaded, the fact it only has two P-cores isn't really a deal-breaker and with 12 threads in total it's going to be fine for heavy workloads where more P-cores get throttled by restrictive laptop TDPs anyway.

 

[Ruru]

Absolutely. I'm excited for this:

View attachment 236551

It's a small die so it should be cheap, power-efficient, and competent for everyday tasks and casual gaming. Given how much stuff your average user runs that is single-threaded, the fact it only has two P-cores isn't really a deal-breaker and with 12 threads in total it's going to be fine for heavy workloads where more P-cores get throttled by restrictive laptop TDPs anyway.

Exactly. My laptop has a dualcore HT Haswell and it's still absolutely suitable for basic tasks (browsing the internet, chatting with friends and watching 1080p videos).

 

[Ravenmaster]

The 'N' in Alder Lake-N stands for 'NOPE!'

 

[TheLostSwede]

Absolutely. I'm excited for this:

View attachment 236551

It's a small die so it should be cheap, power-efficient, and competent for everyday tasks and casual gaming. Given how much stuff your average user runs that is single-threaded, the fact it only has two P-cores isn't really a deal-breaker and with 12 threads in total it's going to be fine for heavy workloads where more P-cores get throttled by restrictive laptop TDPs anyway.

This has no P cores at all.

 

[iO]

Performance of an 8-core CometLake but only the cost of an Atom chip sounds quite appealing IMO

 

[Chrispy_]

This has no P cores at all.

Yeah, wondering if it's die-harvested M0 with faulty/disabled P-cores or something else that hasn't been officially revealed in any press conference or blog.
Given the total lack of on-chip PCIe lanes, it could well be something that exists only as an embedded solution for thin clients, POS kiosks etc.

 

[watzupken]

I feel the e-cores are not exactly power efficient looking at the review previously. These Gracemont CPUs are almost as quick as Skylake, but they get power hungry as it approaches 4Ghz. Lower clockspeed will drop the power requirement, but not sure if we can still see decent performance once we scale it down to 10 to 15W.

Intel Core i9-12900K E-Cores Only Performance Review - Power Consumption & Efficiency | TechPowerUp

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yeah, wondering if it's die-harvested M0 with faulty/disabled P-cores or something else that hasn't been officially revealed in any press conference or blog.
Given the total lack of on-chip PCIe lanes, it could well be something that exists only as an embedded solution for thin clients, POS kiosks etc.

Could well be the latter, but could also as I mentioned, be for Chromebooks or some other more limited systems where extra PCIe lanes don't really matter.

 

[AusWolf]

A new generation of Compute Sticks maybe? My Cherry Trail Atom-based little thing could use a worthy replacement.

 

[defaultluser]

I feel the e-cores are not exactly power efficient looking at the review previously. These Gracemont CPUs are almost as quick as Skylake, but they get power hungry as it approaches 4Ghz. Lower clockspeed will drop the power requirement, but not sure if we can still see decent performance once we scale it down to 10 to 15W.

Intel Core i9-12900K E-Cores Only Performance Review - Power Consumption & Efficiency | TechPowerUp

Those things are all overclocked to hell-and-back (otherwise, Alder Lake would just match the 5900x)

The things will likely top-out at 3.3 ghz turbo

 

[lexluthermiester]

So practically it's just a new gen Atom.

Exactly that.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Depending what it is used for it could be pretty good

 

[defaultluser]

This is the direction Lakefield should have taken (use double the number of e-cores, instead of that clunky 5-tread setup.)

 

[trsttte]

This is the direction Lakefield should have taken (use double the number of e-cores, instead of that clunky 5-tread setup.)

What do you mean by that?

Lakefield had 1 P core and 4 E cores with no thread director or hyper threading (SMT), and with DRAM on top stacked with Intel Foveros special sauce. It was pretty much a beta test in most senses for both Foveros and bigLittle.

This is not that, or at least doesn't appear to be.

 

[hs4]

Atom CPUs are accepted by Chromebook users. Jasper lake (the latest Atom at the moment) is mainly shipped for Chromebooks, and Alder lake-N is probably designed primarily by Google's demand. They need a new Gracemont-only CPU because Android/ChromeOS is generally tuned to an 8-core CPU without SMT.

Intel can pick an M0 die whose E-core is intact and severely damaged to the P-core or iGPU, and ship it as Alder lake-N. However, Gracemont will be unchanged in the Raptor lake generation, so it is also possible to make a new mask with the P core removed from the C0 (Such mask can be used for two years).

In the past Atom CPUs, they are often designed to consume about 10 W when all four cores operate at clocks around 2.5 GHz, and about 6 W around 2.0 GHz. Usecase of P-cores integrated in the desktop CPUs is far different from such case. Each P-core consume 7.5 W per core at 3.6 GHz.

 

[defaultluser]

What do you mean by that?

Lakefield had 1 P core and 4 E cores with no thread director or hyper threading (SMT), and with DRAM on top stacked with Intel Foveros special sauce. It was pretty much a beta test in most senses for both Foveros and bigLittle.

This is not that, or at least doesn't appear to be.

Well, obviously - I'm just saying standard designs would have yielded better performance (all without the massive hardware core scheduler they had to add to Alder Lake)

 

[trsttte]

Well, obviously - I'm just saying standard designs would have yielded better performance (all without the massive hardware core scheduler they had to add to Alder Lake)

Yes and no, for the target lakefield was trying to cater to bigLittle makes a lot of sense. But the software needs to be prepared for it and windows clearly wasn't (and in a lot of ways it still isn't - so much so they went the thread director route).

When more performance reviews for Alder lake mobile come out we'll be able to see how the strategy pans out but from the early reports it's looking pretty good.