Looking forward to the stars and the moon, Intel finally officially released the first generation of Core Ultra, as the first person of the 13th generation Core mobile processor, what is special about it with the new naming convention, and whether the performance improvement is worthy of our expectations?
Core Ultra's core competency
As the first generation of Core Ultra, its core competitiveness is the first Intel 4 process technology, the introduction of a new split modular package, the addition of new low-power island energy efficiency cores (Low Power E-cores) in all series, the integration of a new independent NPU AI acceleration engine, improve the local AI computing power, can achieve large-scale, multi-scenario popular applications. In addition, some models integrate a new generation of ARC high-performance core graphics cards.
This time, the Core Ultra packs all the platform modules into a single chip, and there is no longer a separate chipset. Connectivity has been dramatically improved, with support for DDR5-5600 or LPDDR5-7467 memory, HDMI 21 and dp 21** output, support up to 4 Thunderbolt 4, 3 pcie 40 x4 SSD, PCIe 5 supported0x8 of the independent graphics card, there are 8 pcie 40 can connect to other external devices. At the same time, it is also good for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 54. Wireless network card support.
The listing is divided into two waves, and the U series is not recommended
According to Intel's plan, the first-generation Core Ultra will be launched in two batches, the 28W H28 series for the first time, replacing the existing 13th Gen Core P28 and H45, and the 15W U15 series, replacing the 13th Gen Core U15, which is mainly used for thin and light laptops and gaming laptops.
Q1 in 2024 will usher in the second wave of H45 (45W) and U9 (9W), but they are all later, and we will mainly talk about H28 and U15 that can be bought soon.
First of all,It's U15It's really not good,There are still only 2P cores,8E core,The integrated core display is not arc Ruixuan,In addition to the addition of 2 energy efficiency cores,And the existing 13th generation coreU15There is no essential change,But if you have a little pursuit of performance,Try not to choose this platform。 The 15W Core Ultra is still only suitable for ultra-thin or 2-in-1 devices in the 1kg class.
As for the H-series Core Ultra, it is officially said to be the most energy-efficient mobile processor in history, which can adapt to the power consumption range of 9W and 45W, but it performs best at the 25W node, and OEMs can also set two peak power consumption levels of 64W or 115W for it according to product positioning. Obviously, the former is the upper limit of thin and light laptops, while the latter is exclusive to gaming laptops with enhanced heat dissipation.
The Core Ultra of the H28 series debuts with 4 sub-models, namely the Ultra 7 165H and 155H, and the Ultra 5 135H and 125H. Ultra 7 has 6+8+2 with a total of 16 cores and 22 threads, ** cache 24MB, and a maximum turbo frequency of 50ghz and 48GHz, integrated ARC 8 with 8 XE cores (128 XMX engines).
Ultra 5 has 4+8+2 with a total of 14 cores and 18 threads, ** cache 18MB, and a maximum turbo frequency of 46ghz and 45GHz, integrated ARC 7 with 7 XE cores.
The higher-positioned Ultra 9 185H will come out in Q1 next year, but its specifications are about the same as the Ultra 7, just a little more frequent and not cost-effective. Enthusiast gaming laptops, you have to look at the current 13th generation Core HX platform, as well as its iterative upgraded version, 8 large 16 small 24 cores and 32 threads specifications, CPU computing power can kill Ultra 9 in seconds.
CPU performance improvement is limited, and battery life is significantly increased
As a rule, every time Intel upgrades the process, it is difficult to pull the frequency of the original processor too high. The first-generation Core Ultra also suffered this dark loss.
Since the Core Ultra has not changed much in terms of CPU microarchitecture, its CPU performance depends on the main frequency, so in the single-core performance of the 28W thin and light book, the Core Ultra 7 165H can't beat the 13th generation Core i7-1370P (6 big 8 small 14 cores 20 threads, 5.2ghz）。
In terms of multi-core performance, the Core Ultra 7 165H has a performance improvement of about 8% compared to the i7-1370P with 2 extra cores and optimizations.
Overall, the Core Ultra 7 165H is still slightly stronger than the Ryzen 7 7840U, and Intel also found Qualcomm's previous generation Snapdragon 8CX Gen3 to whip the corpse, I don't know what the result will be if it is replaced with Snapdragon X Elite.
Although the CPU performance has not improved much, the Core Ultra will usher in a greater advantage in terms of battery life, which can be handled by two LP E cores**decoding**, etc., and can completely shut down all P E cores in the entire computing module, as well as other module units that are not needed.
According to official data, the Core Ultra 7 165H reduces power consumption by 25% compared to the i7-1370P when it comes to networking, and much lower power consumption in various test scenarios than the Ryzen 7 7840U, and drops by as much as 79% in standby.
Arc core display and AI have become the biggest highlights
The real killer feature of the first-generation Core Ultra is actually the new sharp core graphics, which support hardware ray tracing, Xess superresolution technology and **1** encoding and other technical features.
In fact, the core Ultra 7 series integrates a low-power version of the Iris A370M, which is also built with 8 XE cores. The Core Ultra 5 series, on the other hand, is between the A350M and A370M.
According to Intel's official data, in different games, the Core Ultra 7's core graphics can be improved by 9% and up to 100% compared to the 13th Gen Core i7-1370P integrated Iris XE 96.
The actual gaming performance of the Core Ultra 7 155H is on par with that of the Ryzen 7 7840U, with the 165H narrowly outperforming. However, the Ryzen 7 7840U is not a full-blooded version after all, and judging from the available data, the core display of the Core Ultra 5 is slightly inferior to the Radeon 780M integrated by the Ryzen 7 7840HS, and the core graphics of the Core Ultra 7 is slightly stronger.
The problem is,The ** of the Ryzen platform notebook is mostly at the price of 3500 yuan 5000 yuan, while the ** of the Core Ultra 7 starts at 6000 yuan, which is the higher or lower cost performance?It is estimated that users also have rod scales in their hearts.
The first-generation Core Ultra is equipped with an integrated NPU neural processor, which can fully meet the computing needs of future device-side AI application scenarios and can be used to handle low-load and low-latency AI inference work.
Core Ultra supports the synergy of CPU, GPU and NPU, and the three combine to form an XPU with a computing power of up to 34TOPS, which is a full 3 of the Ryzen 7040 series4 times, also 2 times the Ryzen 8040 series1 times. According to official data, in some tests (Gimp Stable Diffusion), the AI performance of the Core Ultra has reached 54 times, and 38% lower power consumption in Zoom** meetings, and 2 times more energy efficient in some AI tests (UL Procyon).5 times.
Whether the Core Ultra is worth it or not depends on the end**
In general, the first-generation Core Ultra has made up for the shortcomings of its predecessors in the 3D gaming experience with the upgrade of the Arc core display, although it can't open a gap with the Ryzen platform, but after all, it has regained the lead. Moreover, Core Ultra also has better energy efficiency, stronger end-side AI computing power, better acceleration for Adobe's family bucket, brand power and industry appeal must also be above AMD, and comprehensive performance and future development potential are definitely no problem.
However, as the debut of the Intel 4 process, the cost of the first-generation Core Ultra should not be low. As mentioned earlier, even if it is a Core Ultra 7, its comprehensive combat power is only slightly stronger than the existing Ryzen 7 7840HS, but the latter** has been sold by many brands to about 4000 yuan or even lower. As the main force of shipments, how much should the Core Ultra 5 be sold for in order to be accepted by the public?If new notebooks equipped with Ryzen 7 8840HS also remain on the market at a parity next year, can Core Ultra adopt a positive ** strategy to deal with it?
Everything has to come back to ** in the end.