There's no doubt that for Intel fans, after a toothpaste-like experience of the 14th Gen Core processors, everyone is looking forward to Meteor The lake architecture processor can arrive early, of course, Intel has also warmed up for this generation of products for a long time, including the naming of the Intel Core Ultra processor, as well as the analysis of the previous architecture, and on December 15th, the Core Ultra processor finally met with everyone, and this highly anticipated mobile processor by consumers also officially appeared.
Before the press conference, Intel held a communication meeting to introduce the performance parameters of the Intel Core Ultra processor in detail, and it can be said that the Intel Core Ultra processor is the vanguard of the blue giant embracing the AI era.
New architecture and process for new energy efficiency
Speaking of the new generation of Core Ultra processors, we have to mention the Meteor Lake architecture and Intel's Intel 4 process, which introduced EUV technology to wafer production for the first time. Intel said that the successful development and mass production of Intel 4 can also lay a very solid foundation for the smooth development of Intel 3 and the subsequent Intel 20A and Intel 18A. Compared to Intel 7, Intel 4 has a two-fold increase in transistor density, resulting in a 20% increase in energy efficiency.
In terms of architecture, in order to make Intel Core Ultra processors more efficient, in addition to the traditional P-core and E-core, Intel has also added LP E-cores this time, integrating memory controllers, * codecs, display processing units, NPU, etc. into low-power processing units, thereby improving the overall energy efficiency of the CPU. Of course, whether it is Intel 4 or the new architecture, it has been explained in more detail at the Intel Technology Summit.
Thanks to Intel 4 and the new process architecture, Intel calls the Core Ultra processor the most efficient, and Intel shows the performance and efficiency curves of Qualcomm's 8CX Gen3, Apple's M3, AMD's 7840U, and i7-1370P and Core Ultra 7 165H. It can be seen that compared with the other three processors, the Core Ultra 7 165H has a better energy efficiency curve, and the Core Ultra 7 165H has an 11% performance lead in the power consumption point dominated by thin and light laptops, and in practical applications, taking light applications such as Netflix Video Playback as an example, the power consumption of the previous generation processor is 1540MW, while this generation is 1150MW, which is a 25% reduction in power consumption This power consumption is mainly due to the construction of LP E cores.
Compared with the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, the Core Ultra processor has a more obvious lead in energy consumption, with a minimum standby power consumption of 79%, thereby increasing the battery life of the notebook.
In terms of theoretical performance, the Core Ultra 7 165H is 11% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7840U, and it is also a certain improvement compared to the previous generation i7-1370P, but in terms of single-core performance, the Core Ultra 7 165H is behind its own 1370P, and 12% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7840U, which Intel explains is due to the fact that 1370P has a higher clock speed, which is ahead in single-threaded performance.
In practice, however, the Core Ultra 7 165H is more deeply optimized for mainstream software, resulting in a 31% lead in Video Editing, a 41% lead in Premiere Pro, and a 19% lead in Lightroom. In line with its positioning as a productivity tool. It can be said that in terms of CPU performance, the performance of the Core Ultra processor is remarkable, of course, it is not as much as imagined, there is a leap forward, but this processor is mainly aimed at the thin and light market, and consumers still pay more attention to the weight and battery life of the notebook, and the Core Ultra processor still has obvious advantages in this regard.
GPU performance has skyrocketed, but it's not for gamers
If the CPU performance increase is expected, then the GPU performance increase is amazing. The first is the architecture, the Core Ultra processor uses the new XE LPG architecture, which is nearly twice as much graphics performance as the previous generation. In addition, the GPU also supports more features of the DX12U, including new features such as ray tracing and mesh shading in the hardware, and the new GPU also adds **1 encoding support, which can be hardware encoded up to 8K and 10-bit HDR**.
This generation of Core processors focuses on AI, so the new generation of GPUs has also added a richer AI instruction set, such as adding DP4A AI instructions to make AI calculations faster, and the other is XESS, which makes players' gaming experience smoother with the help of AI.
Compared to the Core i7-1370P, the Core Ultra 7 165H's gaming performance averages around 50%, while the latest triple-A titles like Baldur's Gate 3 have doubled the frame rate. Even for mainstream esports games, the game frame rate can be increased by 15%-20%. Compared with AMD's Ryzen 7040 series processors, the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H also has a 5% performance improvement at 1080p and medium special effects, which can be said to be the most outstanding mobile processor for gaming to date.
In addition, with XESS, the Core Ultra 7 165H has a more ideal frame rate in games, even some triple-A masterpieces can maintain around 60 fps, knowing that this is a core graphics rather than a discrete graphics card. However, Intel itself is very modest, saying that although the core graphics of this generation of Core Ultra processors have improved significantly compared with the previous generation, and even better than the products of competitors, this generation of processors is mainly built for thin and light notebooks, not for gamers, and if you want to play these games smoothly at high resolution, it is better to choose a game book with a discrete graphics card.
Discrete NPUs give AI PCs a boost in performance
This year can be said to be the first year of AI, and it is also the year of AI explosion, and this blue giant will naturally not miss the AI feast. Intel says the new Core Ultra processor is here for the AI PC scenario. Core Ultra has a total of three XPUs - CPU, GPU, and NPU, all of which can be used for AI processing. The overall hashrate now reaches 34tops. The NPU is Intel's new processing unit specially designed for AI this time, such as processing light AI loads such as ** meetings and watching streams**, and the main thing is to save power.
For example, the AI computing unit in the CPU is used to run such applications that are sensitive to latency, such as speech recognition and control, and need to be processed and responded to immediately. GPUs are used for complex and high-throughput AI applications, such as AI drawing and AI inference, and of course, the energy consumption of GPUs is also the highest among XPUs.
As a processor born for AI, the Core Ultra processor is naturally superior to AI performance, taking the popular Wensheng diagram open source model as an example, the Core Ultra processor has 32x performance improvement, compared to the previous generation of processors also has 17x performance improvement. Other AI models have also been improved to varying degrees. In addition to the improved AI generation capabilities, the NPU of the Intel Core Ultra processor can reduce power consumption by 38% when running Zoom AI, and up to 25 times the power consumption. Maybe desktop users don't have such an intuitive feeling, but for notebook users, lower power consumption means higher battery life, which is still quite useful.
Intel hopes to achieve 100 million devices with AI accelerators by 2025, and there are currently a large number of partners in Intel's ecosystem who are developing corresponding AI applications, or using AI to reshape their existing application base. Intel already has more than 100 ISV partners and more than 300 applications with AI features. It can be regarded as the initial completion of the construction of the AI ecosystem. The advantage of Intel doing this is that AI manufacturers can deeply optimize for Intel Core Ultra processors, so as to achieve better AI performance and win the favor of consumers.
Next-generation Intel EVO certification: closer to reality and more stringent
The above is the introduction of Intel Core Ultra, and for the whole notebook, Intel has upgraded its EVO certification to adapt to the newer iteration of the **CPU.
Compared to previous EVOs, Meteor Lake EVO notebooks have higher requirements, such as dual-channel memory to provide ample bandwidth, and the notebook also needs to support fast system response from face recognition or voice. And the notebook also needs to support face recognition or fingerprint recognition, and even waking up the phone is also a method. Of course, the new EVO certification also puts forward higher requirements for AI performance, in addition, including the battery life and fast charging of the notebook, all of which need to meet Intel's certification. This time, the brightness of the screen also needs to be above 250 nits, the thin and light laptop needs to be within 15mm thickness, and the gaming laptop needs to be 20mm, and the resolution of the camera needs to support 1080p@30 frames.
It can be said that the current Meteor Lake EVO certification considers to test the performance of the notebook from multiple dimensions, so as to make the comprehensive performance of the notebook more in line with the actual use level. A notebook that can pass EVO certification will not disappoint in terms of actual experience, at least the lower limit is there. As the generation that has changed the most from Intel in recent years, Intel Core Ultra processors are still quite sincere, whether it is a surge in GPU performance or a better energy consumption ratio, consumers can feel a burst of surprises. Intel seems to have been squeezing toothpaste all year long, and the launch of Meteor Lake can be regarded as a demonstration of the strong R&D capabilities of Giant Blue, proving that it is not completely lying flat. Not to mention the efforts made by Meteor Lake to embrace AI in this era of AI **, after all, Meteor Lake is oriented to thin and light laptops, focusing on productivity, and AI is a powerful tool to improve work efficiency.
Of course, today is only the release of the Intel Core Ultra processor, and more notebook terminal products should be announced at CES 2024, when everyone can choose the right notebook for themselves according to their own needs, so as to enjoy the excellent AI performance brought by the Core Ultra processor.