Intel Readies "Arrow Lake" Variant with Oversized iGPU to Take on AMD "Strix Halo"

[btarunr]

AMD "Strix Halo" isn't just a mobile processor with an oversized iGPU meant to power "gaming ultraportables," it has other potential applications such as game consoles (both handheld and standalone). Not willing to cede this market to AMD, Intel is reportedly readying its own such chip, which is being reported as the "Arrow Lake Halo" for the lack of an official name. This chip will feature a large iGPU based on the Xe2 "Battlemage" graphics architecture, the variant of Xe2 Intel plans to use for its next-generation Arc discrete GPUs. The CPU compute complex will be carried over from the regular "Arrow Lake" chips, and feature a mix of "Lion Cove" P-cores, and "Skymont" E-core clusters.

To meet the higher memory bandwidth demand that arises from a high-performance iGPU and CPU, AMD designed the RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture to be more LPDDR5-aware, since at the physical layer, LPDDR operates differently from GDDR. Intel will probably do something similar, and deploy a 256-bit wide LPDDR5/x memory interface replacing the 128-bit wide interface the regular "Arrow Lake" mobile chips come with. Whether "Arrow Lake Halo" and "Strix Halo" remain competitive will depend a lot on which gaming experiences the two companies want to sell. The way the iGPU of "Strix Halo" is rumored to be specced suggests something that is 1440p-capable, or 4K-capable with FSR 3.



The oldest references to the "Arrow Lake Halo" date back to a purported Intel internal slide leaked to the web by Adored TV some time between 2021-2023, which used the "GT3" performance designator for the iGPU, and explicitly used the word "Halo" in its codename. The slide describes the chip as having 6 "Lion Cove" P-cores, and 8 "Skymont" E-cores, with a large iGPU. Such a product, however, may not end up competitive to what "Strix Halo" is shaping up to be—up to 16 full-sized "Zen 5" CPU cores, and an RDNA 3.5 iGPU with 40 compute units (2,560 stream processors). This to us suggests that the latest leak of "Arrow Lake Halo" is different from the one in the Adored TV leak, and may have more cores, and a larger iGPU.



This wouldn't be the first time Intel tried its hand at mobile processors with oversized iGPUs on the package, the "Kaby Lake-G" mobile processor featured a "Kaby Lake" CPU die and a Radeon Vega M GPU die sharing a package as an MCM, with the two dies having their own discrete memory interfaces.

Many Thanks to TumbleGeorge for the tip.

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[xxxsonic1971]

This look's quite interesting.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Competition is good, and its nice to see intel remember that iris plus was a thing way back when, and there may still be a market for it.

PRoblem is, their drivers are total trash. From those who have had time to tinker with meteor lake, allegedly, games that work perfectly fine on ARC cards or XE iGPUs fail miserably on meteor lake's chips. Intel hasnt figured out how to carry their driver fixes forward.

 

[Evildead666]

Could this have the "Adamantium" Cache Tile ?

 

[Daven]

Vapourware

 

[GoldenX]

With the useless drivers they ship, this is just a resistor warming up the rest of the chip.

 

[sLowEnd]

Hopefully it's more available than the Kaby Lake + Vega M chip (i7-8809G) was. That thing barely existed.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I guess with AMD in Intel's rear-view mirror they are able to see what AMD is up to and can copy them.

 

[pavle]

As long as it's not a 300 Watt design.

 

[gehadsheha]

Given Intel's history with their iGPU drivers (which is are drivers that are clearly just made for standard desktop usage, and are very obviously not made for any kind of 3D applications), i don't think these new iGPUs would be better than AMD's drivers for their iGPUs.
I've used Intel's i3-3120m with the Intel HD Graphics 4000 for 5 years, and the drivers were simply terrible for gaming and didn't have any advanced customization for 3D applications like Nvidia and AMD already had for a long time. So I'm not really excited for these new APUs.

 

[Scrizz]

I've used Intel's i3-3120m with the Intel HD Graphics 4000 for 5 years, and the drivers were simply terrible for gaming and didn't have any advanced customization for 3D applications like Nvidia and AMD already had for a long time. So I'm not really excited for these new APUs.

I mean... I wouldn't compare the iGPU from 11 generations back (before they were really even looking at getting into GPUs) to what is out now and will be coming out soon.