Intel is significantly expanding its desktop Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake-S" lineup with new 65 W models along the sidelines of the 2025 International CES, but more importantly, it is bringing the "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture to the mobile space. The company is planning to launch at least 22 processor models this January, but not all of them are based on "Arrow Lake." Tom's Hardware reports that the lineup broadly revolves around the "Core 2-series" processor model numbering.

The Core Ultra 200H series consists of H-segment (conventional thickness notebook) processors in the 28 W to 45 W class, and are based on the "Arrow Lake-H" silicon. The Core Ultra 200HX series targets premium gaming notebooks and portable workstations, and consists of 55 W to 65 W class processors, including CPU overclocking capabilities on certain models. Things get interesting with the Core Ultra 200U series. These chips are based on the "Meteor Lake Refresh" silicon—an older microarchitecture—targeting the 7 W to 28 W segments for ultraportables. Lastly, there's the Core H 200 and Core U 200 series (no "Ultra" in the branding), which are based on the older "Raptor Lake" monolithic silicon, targeting mainstream notebooks.

At AAEON Technology, we recognize growing demand for secure and reliable industrial systems. In collaboration with Canonical, AAEON Technology validates Ubuntu Pro across our Intel-based industrial systems. Each unit comes with a preinstalled Ubuntu image, an Ubuntu Pro license sticker, and 10 years of Canonical-backed updates for ongoing security and maintenance. "This collaboration means our customers benefit from cutting-edge hardware paired with the secure, long-term support offered with Ubuntu Pro enabled. With ongoing updates, they're always protected, allowing them to focus on their core goals," said Victor Lai, Managing Director at AAEON.

Ubuntu Pro provides enterprise-level security, compliance, and long-term stability for industrial and edge applications. It meets strict regulatory standards while delivering high performance in demanding environments.

Intel is expected to debut its next-generation Arc "Battlemage" discrete GPU in December 2024, or ahead of the 2025 CES, HotHardware reports, citing Golden Pig Upgrade, a reliable source with GPU leaks. The source says that they expect "wonderful performance" for the GPU. Intel has a lot invested in its PC graphics division, across not just its two-year-old Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, but also the integrated graphics solutions it's been launching with its Core Ultra processor generations. It debuted the DirectX 12 Ultimate-capable Xe-LPG graphics architecture with Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" and Arc Graphics branding, which it carried forward to the Core Ultra Series 200 "Arrow Lake" on the desktop platform. Meanwhile, "Battlemage" got debuted as the iGPU of the Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" mobile processor, which posted gaming performance beating that of the Ryzen 8000 "Hawk Point" processor, but falling short of the Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point."

Intel is expected to tap into a fairly new foundry node for the Arc "Battlemage" discrete GPU series. Its chips could strike a performance/Watt and performance/price inflection point in the performance segment, that drives the most volumes for NVIDIA and AMD. It is this exact segment that AMD has withdrawn from the enthusiast segment to focus on, with its next-generation Radeon RDNA 4 generation. With "Alchemist," Intel already laid a strong foundation for hardware-accelerated ray tracing and AI, and the company is only expected to advance on these fronts further. Could "Battlemage" and "Granite Rapids" go down as the most exciting products from Intel in 2024? We should find out next month.

TechPowerUp has released version 2.60.0 of GPU-Z, a popular graphics sub-system information, monitoring, and diagnostic utility. This latest update brings significant enhancements, including full support for the Arm64 architecture and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite GPUs. The release also adds support for AMD Zen 5 CPU temperature monitoring and a wide range of new GPUs from NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. Notable additions include the NVIDIA 4070 Ti Super (AD102), RTX 4070 (AD103), RTX 4060 Ti (AD104), RTX 4060 (AD106), as well as AMD Zen 5 (Strix Point and Granite Ridge), and Intel Raptor Lake U SKUs and Meteor Lake Intel Arc Graphics.

In addition to expanded hardware support, GPU-Z 2.60.0 addresses several important issues. The update fixes NVIDIA driver version reporting for some pre-2015 versions, resolves an installer problem that prevented closing running instances of GPU-Z, and corrects the "0 MHz" memory clock display on certain AMD RDNA GPUs without overclocking support. Other improvements include a small handle leak fix, added support for the Monster Notebook subvendor ID, and compatibility with new VMWare virtual GPU IDs. The installer now requires Windows 7 or newer, with appropriate messaging for unsupported systems. Users can download the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z from the official TechPowerUp website to access these new features and improvements.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.60.0

Eurocom launches the Blitz Ultra, a 14-inch and 16-inch enterprise class laptop loaded with features related to security and manageability while carrying unmatched connectivity and expandability. It is powered by Intel's ultra-efficient 14th-gen Intel Ultra Meteor Lake Processor, a robust 73Wh 10hrs+ battery and a captivating 16:10 screen. Your productivity will soar to new heights. Heavy duty, yet lightweight 1.6 kg / 3.52 lbs design that meets military standard MIL-STD 810H. When it comes to security features, the Blitz Ultra has built-in TPM 2.0 data-encryption module, BIOS support for SED (Self Encrypting Drives) and a Kensington lock making it the ultimate enterprise-class laptop for security, connectivity and expandability.

"The Eurocom Blitz Ultra is designed for government, military, security, healthcare and corporate professionals engaged in mission-critical computing and/or handling corporate IP assets and/or customer's sensitive data. It provides secure access via data encryption via TPM 2.0 module. Blitz Ultra has a Factory- installed Offline Permanent Disconnect Option. This is an optional upgrade to physically remove all connectivity and communications components to ensure a 100% offline system for maximum security of sensitive data and protection of intellectual property. " - Mark Bialic, Eurocom President.

Vecow has launched its TGS-1000 series of mini PCs, featuring stackable expansion options for networking, wireless mobility, and additional capabilities. The Vecow TGS-1000 Series is an ultra-compact, fanless, stackable embedded computer lineup that includes the TGS-1000 and TGS-1500 models, powered by Intel Core Ultra Meteor Lake processors with integrated CPU, GPU, and NPU. This series supports up to 96 GB of DDR5 memory. Optimized for edge AI applications, it delivers up to a 14% boost in CPU performance and enhanced graphics capabilities.

The TGS-1000 Series can drive up to five independent displays through two HDMI and three DisplayPort (DP) ports. It features a variety of I/O connections, including up to five USB 3.0 ports (four Type-A and one Type-C) and a 2.5GbE LAN port with TSN support. Its modular design allows for flexible expansion with options for USB, isolated DIO, COM, LAN, or 4G/LTE, making it suitable for AI, smart retail, office communication, and gaming. The TGS-1500 model adds support for MXM graphics cards up to RTX 5000 Ada.

In a recent report by Mercury Research, AMD has shown significant progress in the CPU market during Q2 2024, particularly in the data center and laptop segments. AMD's most notable achievement comes in the server CPU space, where it now holds 24.1% of the market, a 5.6% increase year-over-year, and a 0.5% increase from the previous quarter. This growth is particularly impressive in terms of revenue, with AMD capturing 33.7% of server CPU revenue despite its lower unit share. This suggests that AMD's high-end EPYC processors carry premium prices in the data center market and are most of the unit volume. AMD has also made advancements in the laptop CPU segment, reaching a 20.3% market share. This represents a 1% increase from the previous quarter and a 3.8% rise year-over-year. The company's success in laptops can be attributed to solid demand for its existing products, propelled by Intel's reported supply issues with Meteor Lake processors.

However, AMD experienced a slight setback in the desktop CPU market, losing a 1% share to Intel quarter-over-quarter. AMD now controls 23% of this segment, compared to Intel's 77%. This dip may be due to AMD's preparation for the launch of its new Zen 5-based CPUs in August. Despite AMD's gains, Intel maintains its overall dominance in the CPU market. In the total client PC space, Intel holds a 78.9% market share, with AMD at 21.1%. Intel still holds the majority of revenue and market share on all fronts. However, AMD is executing well, and Intel's financial troubles could be a setback for team blue. More competition at every front is great to see, and we are curious to look at the data from upcoming quarters and analyze how well both of companies perform.

In a conversation with Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger, industry analyst Patrick Moorhead revealed that Intel's Meteor Lake CPU platform suffers from some production issues. More specifically, Intel has been facing some yield and/or back-end production issues with its Meteor Lake platform, resulting in a negative impact on Intel's margins when producing the chip. The market is showing great demand for these chips, and Intel has been forced to run productions of "hot lots"-- batch production of silicon with the highest priority that gets moved to the front of the production line so they can get packaged as fast as possible. While this is a good sign that the demand is there, running hot lots increases production costs overall as some other wafers have to go back so Meteor Lake can pass.

The yield issues associated with Meteor Lake could be stemming from the only tile made by Intel in the MTL package: the compute tile made on the Intel 4 process. Intel 4 process is specific to Meteor Lake. No other Intel product uses it, not even the Xeon 6, which uses Intel 3, or any of the upcoming CPUs like Arrow Lake, which uses the Intel 20A node. So, Intel is doing multiple nodes for multiple generations of processors, further driving up costs as typical high-volume production with a single node for multiple processors yields lower costs. Additionally, the company is left with lots of "wafers to burn" with Intel 4 node, so even with Meteor Lake having yield issues, the production is ultimately fine, while the operating costs and margins take a hit.

Premier embedded computing provider AAEON (Stock Code: 6579), has announced the release of the PICO-MTU4, the smallest single-board computer to host the new Intel Core Ultra Processor platform. On the ultra-small 100 mm x 72 mm PICO-ITX form factor, the PICO-MTU4 leverages the disaggregated die design, hybrid CPU core architecture, and integrated VPU of the Intel Core Ultra series for a multi-thread performance increase of up to 24%, with a 50% reduction in SoC power consumption.
The board is available in SKUs featuring both Intel Core Ultra 7 and 5 Processors, all with a TDP of 15 W, maxing out at a total of 12 cores (2 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and a further 2 Low Power E-cores) and 14 threads of processing power.

Equipped with LPDDR5x, two LAN ports (2.5GbE and 1GbE), two USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and a variety of serial interfaces for industrial protocols like dual COM for RS-232/422/485, a 4-bit GPIO, and SMBus, AAEON have indicated the board will target the advanced industrial robotics market, with SCADA, MES, and system monitoring devices singled out as particularly suitable uses.

A CPU-Z screenshot of an alleged Intel Core Ultra 9 285K "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor engineering sample is doing rounds on social media, thanks to wxnod. CPU-Z identifies the chip with an Intel Core Ultra case badge with the deep shade of blue associated with the Core Ultra 9 brand extension, which hints at this being the top Core Ultra 9 285K processor model, we know it's the "K" or "KF" SKU looking at its processor base power reading of 125 W. The chip is built in the upcoming Intel Socket LGA1851. CPU-Z displays the process node as 7 nm, which corresponds with the Intel 4 foundry node.

Intel is using the same Intel 4 foundry node for "Arrow Lake-S" as the compute tile of its "Meteor Lake" processor. Intel 4 offers power efficiency and performance comparable to 4 nm nodes from TSMC, although it is physically a 7 nm node. Likewise, the Intel 3 node is physically 5 nm. If you recall, the main logic tile of "Lunar Lake" is being built on the TSMC N3P (3 nm) node. This means that Intel is really gunning for performance/Watt with "Lunar Lake," to get as close to the Apple M3 Pro as possible.

Simply NUC, Inc., a leading custom computing company, proudly announced the launch of the Scorpion Canyon NUC 14 Performance device across their global websites, a revolutionary PC workstation designed to meet diverse computing needs. Featuring the latest Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" CPUs, Intel Arc integrated graphics, and optional NVIDIA RTX 4060 or 4070 graphics, the NUC 14 Performance redefines computing in a compact form factor.

"Introducing the NUC 14 Performance is a significant milestone for us," said Aaron Rowsell, Founder & President of Simply NUC. "This product family ushers in advanced AI capabilities and top-tier graphics in computing power. With unmatched performance, AI-readiness, and a sleek tool-less design, the NUC 14 Performance sets a new standard for compact workstations."

Intel is preparing a complete refresh of its desktop platform this year, with the introduction of the Core Ultra 200 series processors based on the "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture. The company skipped a desktop processor based on "Meteor Lake," probably because it didn't meet the desired multithreaded performance targets for Intel as it maxed out at 6P+8E+2LP, forcing Intel to come up with the 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" generation to see it through 2H-2023 and at least three quarters of 2024. The company, in all likelihood, will launch the new "Arrow Lake-S" Core Ultra 200 series toward late-Q3 or early-Q4 2024 (September-October). The first wave will include the overclocker-friendly K- and KF SKUs, alongside motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset. 2025 will see the series ramp to more affordable processor models, and mainstream chipsets, such as the B860. These processors require a new motherboard, as Intel is introducing the new Socket LGA1851 with them.

Core configurations of the "Arrow Lake-S" chip surfaced on the web thanks to Jaykihn, a reliable source with Intel leaks. In its maximum configuration, the chip is confirmed to feature 8 P-cores, and 16 E-cores. There are no low-power island E-cores. Each of the 8 P-cores is a "Lion Cove" featuring 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache; while each the E-cores are "Skymont," arranged in 4-core modules that share 4 MB L2 caches among them. Intel claims that the "Lion Cove" P-core offers a 14% IPC increase over the "Redwood Cove" P-core powering "Meteor Lake," which in turn had either equal or a 1% IPC regression compared to "Raptor Cove." This would put "Lion Cove" at a 13-14% IPC advantage over the "Raptor Cove" cores. It's important to note here, that the "Lion Cove" P-cores lack HyperThreading, so Intel will be banking heavily on the "Skymont" E-cores to shore up generational multithreaded performance increase. "Skymont" was a show-stopper at Intel's Computex event, with a nearly 50% IPC gain over previous generations of Intel E-cores, which puts it at par with the "Raptor Cove" cores in single-thread performance.

Intel's first three generations of client processors implementing hybrid CPU cores, namely "Alder Lake," "Raptor Lake," and "Meteor Lake," have them arranged along a ringbus, sharing an L3 cache. This usually sees the larger P-cores to one region of the die, and the E-core clusters to the other region. From the perspective of the bidirectional ringbus, the ring-stops would follow the order: one half of the P-cores, one half of the E-core clusters, iGPU, the other half of E-cores, the other half of the P-cores, and the Uncore, as shown in the "Raptor Lake" die-shot, below. Intel plans to rearrange the P-cores and E-core clusters in "Arrow Lake-S."

With "Arrow Lake," Intel plans to disperse the E-core clusters between the P-cores. This would see a P-core followed by an E-core cluster, followed by two P-cores, and then another E-core cluster, then a lone P-core, and a repeat of this pattern. Kepler_L2 illustrated what "Raptor Lake" would have looked like, had Intel applied this arrangement on it. Dispersing the E-core clusters among the P-cores has two possible advantages. For one, the average latency between a P-core ring-stop and an E-core cluster ring-stop would reduce; and secondly, there will also be certain thermal advantages, particularly when gaming, as it reduces the concentration of heat in a region of the die.

TSMC has commenced mass-production of chips for Intel on its 3 nm EUV FinFET foundry node, according to a report by Taiwan industry observer DigiTimes. Intel is using the TSMC 3 nm node for the compute tile of its upcoming Core Ultra 300 "Lunar Lake" processor. The company went into depth about "Lunar Lake" in its Computex 2024 presentation. While a disaggregated chiplet-based processor like "Meteor Lake," the new "Lunar Lake" chip sees the CPU cores, iGPU, NPU, and memory controllers sit on a single chiplet called the compute tile, built on the 3 nm node; while the SoC and I/O components are disaggregated the chip's only other chiplet, the SoC tile, which is built on the TSMC 6 nm node.

Intel hasn't gone into the nuts and bolts of "Arrow Lake," besides mentioning that the processor will feature the same "Lion Cove" P-cores and "Skymont" E-cores as "Lunar Lake," albeit arranged in a more familiar ringbus configuration, where the E-core clusters share L3 cache with the P-cores (something that doesn't happen on "Lunar Lake"). "Arrow Lake" also features a iGPU based on the same Xe2 graphics architecture as "Lunar Lake," and will feature an NPU that meets Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC requirements. What remains a mystery about "Arrow Lake" is the way Intel will go about organizing the various chiplets or tiles. Reports from February 2024 mentioned Intel tapping into TSMC 3 nm for just the disaggregated graphics tile of "Arrow Lake," but we now know from "Lunar Lake" that Intel doesn't shy away from letting TSMC fabricate its CPU cores. The first notebooks powered by "Lunar Lake" are expected to hit shelves within Q3-2024, with "Arrow Lake" following on in Q4.

The top-spec AMD Ryzen AI 9 300 series "Strix Point" processor, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, is expected to post a 20% performance improvement over both the CPU and integrated graphics fronts, over its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 8945HS "Hawk Point," according to leak by Golden Pig Upgrade. On the CPU front, the HX 370 packs a 12-core/24-thread CPU based on a combination of four "Zen 5" and eight "Zen 5c" cores. The single-thread performance gains on the basis of the "Zen 5" microarchitecture's generational IPC increase, besides higher clock speeds; while the multithreaded performance increases on account on more cores. This performance increase isn't linearly scaling with the 50% increase in core-count.

On "Hawk Point," all eight cores are "Zen 4," capable of boosting to high frequencies, with two of them being marked as CPPC preferred cores, capable of boosting the highest. On "Strix Point," however, only four cores are based on the "Zen 5" architecture and capable of boosting to high frequency bands; while the other eight are "Zen 5c," which don't boost as high. While the IPC of "Zen 5c" is identical to "Zen 5," the fact that it doesn't boost as high, means that the generational multithreaded performance gain from the core-count increase is expected to be closer to 20%, with Golden Pig Upgrade talking about a Cinebench R23 nT score of over 20000 points, with "Hawk Point" scoring around 16000 points.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture won't beat the Ryzen 7000X3D series at gaming workloads, said Donny Woligroski, the company's senior technical marketing manager, in an interview with Tom's Hardware. The new "Zen 5" chips, such as the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X, will come close to the gaming performance of the 7800X3D and 7950X3D, but won't quite beat it. The new processors, however, will offer significant generational performance uplifts in productivity workloads, particularly multithreaded workloads that use vector extensions such as VNNI and AVX512. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the fastest gaming desktop processor you can buy, it edges out even Intel's Core i9-14900KS, in our testing.

Given this, we expect the gaming performance of processors like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X to end up closer to those of the Intel Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K. Gamers with a 7000X3D series chip or even a 14th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 chip don't have much to look forward to. AMD confirmed that it's already working on a Ryzen 9000X3D series—that's "Zen 5" with 3D V-cache technology, and is sounds confident of holding on to the title of having the fastest gaming processors. This doesn't seem implausible.

Acemagic, a German mini-PC developer, has an interesting product booth at Computex 2024. We stopped by to take a look and found the exciting world of mini-PC solutions. Among the first products, we looked at the Z1A dual-screen laptop solution. Featuring two 14.1-inch 1080p IPS displays sitting side by side, the Z1A laptop is powered by Intel's Alder Lake Core i7-1265U or i7-1255U CPUs with Intel Iris Xe graphics. Weighting 1.8 kg, the laptop has a 4000 mAh battery and accommodates two M.2 2280 NVMe drives in combination with LPDDR4 memory left empty for users to install. The computer features WiFi 6 and BlueTooth 5.2 connectivity options and has an IO port selection that includes a USB 3.0, HDMI 2.0, and two USB Type-C connectors (one for data and one for charging and data).

German PC OEM Schenker, along with its two brands—XMG targeted at high-performance mobile workstations and gaming notebooks; and Tuxedo, targeting Linux-friendly notebooks; made a splash at the 2024 Computex. We visited their pullout booth. The EVO 14 is a 14-inch class performance notebook powered by choices of Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" or AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS "Hawk Point" mobile processors; an innovative new dual-fan cooling solution, with 65 W sustained power delivery, and an 80 Wh battery pack. The 14-inch display features a 16:10 aspect ratio, 400 nits brightness, and 3K resolution. Memory options go all the way up to 96 GB, and I/O includes either USB4 or Thunderbolt 4, depending on the hardware platform. The EVO 15 is almost identical in terms of specs, but with a larger 99.8 Wh battery, and a 15.3-inch 500 nits display, and a full-sized edge-to-edge keyboard.Update 07:03 UTC: We have some pricing and availability details from Schenker.

Amid all the attention the next-generation "Lion Cove" P-cores powering the upcoming "Lunar Lake" and "Arrow Lake" microarchitectures get as they compete with AMD's "Zen 5," it's easy to lose sight of the next-generation "Skymont" E-cores that will feature in both the upcoming Intel microarchitectures, and as standalone cores in the "Twin Lake" low-power processor. Pictures from an Intel presentation, possibly to PC OEMs, got leaked to the web. These are just thumbnails, we can't see the whole slides, but the person who took the pictures captioned them in a now-deleted social media post on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.

And now, the big reveal—the "Skymont" E-core is said to offer a double-digit IPC gain over the "Crestmont" E-core powering the current "Meteor Lake" processor, which in itself posted a roughly 4% IPC gain over the "Gracemont" E-cores found in the "Raptor Lake" and "Alder Lake" microarchitectures. Such an IPC gain over "Gracemont" should make the "Skymont" E-core match the IPC of the "Sunny Cove" or "Willow Cove" P-cores powering the "Ice Lake" and "Tiger Lake" microarchitectures, respectively, which were both within the 90th percentile of the AMD "Zen 3" core in IPC.

ASUS today introduced the NUC 14 Performance, which as its name suggests, is geared for performance. This is essentially a twin of the ROG NUC, but without the flashy ROG styling, and a broader range of hardware options. The top-spec NUC 14 Performance combines an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 desktop GPU, however other processor and graphics options include the Core Ultra 7 155H processor, and RTX 4060 desktop GPU. You can't opt out of a discrete GPU, for that you'll need to opt for the NUC 14 Pro+, which only packs a Core Ultra 185H, and presents its Arc iGPU, but the I/O of that NUC will be significantly different.

Back to the ASUS NUC 14 Performance, and the box measures 270 mm X 180 mm X 50 mm (WxDxH), weighing just 800 g. You're supposed to add your own memory and storage, the NUC features two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 64 GB of DDR5 memory; and an M.2-2280 slot with PCIe Gen 4 x4 wiring. Network connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth 5.3; 2.5 GbE wired LAN. The main high-bandwidth I/O connection is Thunderbolt 4 (40 Gbps), which doubles up as USB4 40 Gbps, with a USB-C port that also supports DisplayPort 1.4 passthrough from the discrete GPU; a couple of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, USB 2.0 ports for input devices, additional DP 1.4 ports from the GPU, and an HDMI 2.1. The NUC 14 Performance comes with a 330 W power brick. The company didn't reveal pricing, but pricing is expected in the USD $2,200 to $2,500 range.

Intel is readying the new N250 "Twin Lake" line of low-power processors that succeed the N200 series "Alder Lake-N" series. These are chips built on the latest process node Intel is using for its Core and Xeon processors, but only features E-cores (efficiency codes) from the latest microarchitecture. Chips from the N200 series are popular with low-cost notebooks, thin-clients, embedded systems, kiosks and point-of-sale terminals, NAS, and consumer electronics. "Twin Lake" is codename for the new processor series, these are likely monolithic processor dies that use a client ringbus layout, and one E-core cluster that makes up the compute muscle.

While "Alder Lake-N" is powered by "Gracemont" E-cores, the new "Twin Lake" chips are expected to feature "Skymont" E-core clusters. Intel is expected to debut "Skymont" E-cores with its upcoming Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake-MX" mobile processors. "Skymont" is technically two generations ahead of "Gracemont," as Intel introduced the "Crestmont" cores with its current Core Ultra 100 "Meteor Lake" processor family. Not a lot is known about "Skymont" at this point, except that it's expected to feature IPC increases, and perform close to Intel's P-cores from 3-4 generations ago, such as the "Willow Cove" cores powering the 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" processors, looking at past trends of the "Gracemont" core performing similar to a "Skylake" core with HTT disabled.

AMD has reached a significant milestone, capturing a record-high share of the X86 CPU market in the first quarter of 2024, according to the latest report from Mercury Research. This achievement marks a significant step forward for the chipmaker in its long battle against rival Intel's dominance in the crucial computer processor space. The surge was fueled by strong demand for AMD's Ryzen and EPYC processors across consumer and enterprise markets. The Ryzen lineup's compelling price-to-performance ratio has struck a chord with gamers, content creators, and businesses seeking cost-effective computing power without sacrificing capabilities. It secured AMD's 23.9% share, an increase from the previous Q4 of 2023, which has seen a 19.8% market share.

The company has also made major inroads on the data center front with its EPYC server CPUs. AMD's ability to supply capable yet affordable processors has enabled cloud providers and enterprises to scale operations on AMD's platform. Several leading tech giants have embraced EPYC, contributing to AMD's surging server market footprint. Now, it is at 23.6%, a significant increase over the past few years, whereas AMD was just above 10% four years ago in 2020. AMD lost some share to Intel on the mobile PC front due to the Meteor Lake ramp, but it managed to gain a small percentage of the market share of client PCs. As AMD rides the momentum into the second half of 2024, all eyes will be on whether the chipmaker can sustain this trajectory and potentially claim an even larger slice of the x86 CPU pie from Intel in the coming quarters.Below, you can see additional graphs of mobile PC and client PC market share.

Personal computers (PCs) have been used as the major productivity device for several decades. But now we are entering a new era of PCs based on artificial intelligence (AI), thanks to the boom witnessed in generative AI (GenAI). We believe the inventory correction and demand weakness in the global PC market have already normalized, with the impacts from COVID-19 largely being factored in. All this has created a comparatively healthy backdrop for reshaping the PC industry. Counterpoint estimates that almost half a billion AI laptop PCs will be sold during the 2023-2027 period, with AI PCs reviving the replacement demand.

Counterpoint separates GenAI laptop PCs into three categories - AI basic laptop, AI-advanced laptop and AI-capable laptop - based on different levels of computational performance, corresponding use cases and the efficiency of computational performance. We believe AI basic laptops, which are already in the market, can perform basic AI tasks but not completely GenAI tasks and, starting this year, will be supplanted by more AI-advanced and AI-capable models with enough TOPS (tera operations per second) powered by NPU (neural processing unit) or GPU (graphics processing unit) to perform the advanced GenAI tasks really well.

Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has confirmed that the upcoming 18A process of the Panther Lake CPU generation is on schedule for a mid-2025 release, which aligns with the initial projection. This development marks a significant milestone in the company's ongoing efforts to integrate AI capabilities into its processors. The mid-2025 release date is expected to follow the debut of Intel's Arrow Lake process in late 2024 or early 2025, a release that holds the promise of significant advancements in AI computing. During Intel's Q1 2024 Quarterly Results, Gelsinger expressed confidence in the company's AI capabilities, stating that the Core Ultra platform currently delivers leadership AI performance and that the next-generation platforms, Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, will launch later this year, tripling AI performance. He also mentioned that the Panther Lake generation, set to release in 2025, will grow AI performance up to an additional 2x.

The Panther Lake generation represents the culmination of three generations of work in a short time and is expected to continue Intel's iterative approach. This transition is marked by a shift from a hybrid architecture, a combination of different types of processors, to a disaggregated die, where different components of the processor are separated, as AI computing becomes increasingly prominent. This strategic move is aimed at optimizing AI performance and flexibility. This marks the third generation of the Intel Core Ultra series, following Ultra 100 (Meteor Lake), Ultra 200 (Arrow Lake), and Lunar Lake (200V). Intel's release strategy mirrors the pattern set by the Hybrid Architecture, with Alder Lake debuting in 2021, followed by Raptor Lake in 2022, and a refreshed Raptor Lake released last year to bridge the gap until LGA 1851 was ready. However, Intel's roadmap has seen adjustments in the past, such as the initial promise of an Arrow Lake release before the end of 2024, which was later retracted. The mid-2025 release of Panther Lake aligns with rumors of Arrow Lake's late 2024 or early 2025 debut, suggesting that the 18A process CPU generation could debut several months after Arrow Lake.

Lenovo is putting finishing touches on the Yoga Slim 7 14 2024, one of the first non-reference laptop to feature Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon X processor. Leaked images circulating on X (formerly Twitter) reveal a sleek and stylish design, with a 14-inch or 14.5-inch display encased in a slim and portable form factor. Qualcomm has previously showcased eye-catching demo reference systems in a striking red color scheme, but Lenovo's Yoga Slim 7 14 2024 marks the first time a significant laptop manufacturer with actual product images incorporating the Snapdragon X chip. The Yoga Slim 7 14 2024 is part of Lenovo's popular Slim laptop lineup, including models powered by Intel and AMD processors. The latest "Gen 8" iteration featured options for AMD Ryzen 7040 series and Intel 13th Gen Core i and Core Ultra series CPUs.

One notable addition to the Snapdragon X-powered model is the inclusion of a dedicated Microsoft Copilot button. Qualcomm has heavily touted the Snapdragon X's Neural Processing Unit (NPU) performance and its ability to directly accelerate various AI and machine learning algorithms on the device. There have been a few comparison points between Meteor Lake with Intel's NPU and Snapdragon X Elite with Qualcomm's NPU. The chipmaker's X Elite and X Plus laptop offerings are expected to arrive soon, and there are strong indications that this may happen during the Computex trade show.Update 17:28 UTC: X user WalkingCat has posted images of Lenovo Thinkpad T14s laptop, which can be seen below.