After its initial appearance on Computex 2024, Intel is officially introducing the new Core Ultra 200V series (codenamed Lunar Lake) in IFA 2024 at Berlin. The new laptop-bound lineup is touted with leadership efficiency figures, and Intel is setting its sights to fight back against AMD, and a new challenger in the ring – Qualcomm.
Rumors of x86’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
From the get go, Intel wants to make it absolutely clear on one longstanding misconception against the x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) – ARM-based chips, like the Qualcomm Snapdragon X series or the Apple M-series, are not inherently more efficient simply by adopting the RISC-based architecture (x86 is what we call a CISC architecture, which had been associated as the lesser efficient one when compared against Arm chips).
Much of Lunar Lake’s improvements focus on not just improving power efficiency for both from the new Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores, but also slashing power draw from all the surrounding components (memory, interconnect, power delivery, etc). A quick myth-busting session from Intel also claims that its new will in fact outlast Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips in an apples-to-apples test, as well as beating AMD’s current top chip, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.
According to the chipmaker’s first-party benchmarks, the top Lunar Lake chip in the form of Core Ultra 9 288V can achieve 7% more performance in UL Procyon test, whilst cutting its power draw more than half over its predecessor (Core Ultra 7 165H is used here as the Core Ultra 9 185H is a 45W chip). Intel says the new chip achieves 20% more perf-per-watt over Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X1E-80-100, and over 2x more efficient over its Meteor Lake predecessor.
Performance: CPU, GPU, NPU
The performance uplift of the Core Ultra 200V lineup is attributed to the new architecture, Lion Cove (P-core) and Skymont (E-core). The former has a relatively modest 14% IPC (instruction per clock) uplift, whereas the latter gets a massive boost with 68% IPC improvement. This enables the new design, which no longer feature Hyper-Threading, to outperform its predecessors despite having significantly less thread counts. Taking another shot against Qualcomm, it also claims the Core Ultra 9 288V can run at 40% less power for the same amount of multi-core performance.
For gaming, Intel has a strong argument against Qualcomm here: compatibility is king. Amongst 45 games tested between the Core Ultra 9 288V and the top Snapdragon chip (X1E-84-100), the latter failed to run on 23 of them – and for the ones that do, Intel says its chip outperforms the Snapdragon by 68%. What about AMD? For that, the Core Ultra is 16% faster against Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 in games based on its first-party benchmark data.
Continuing on the subject of compatibility, the same applies to AI workloads, according to the chipmaker. In a head-to-head against X1E-78-100, Intel’s Core Ultra 9 288V is 58% faster, while Qualcomm’s chip failed to run on 4 of the 12 benchmarks listed.
New Evo Edition
Intel is also updating its Evo Edition certification, which now includes things ‘new cool and quiet metric,’ real-world battery life, user presence detection, environmental certifications, and more. It’s also adding new requirements to camera quality (something that Qualcomm excelled at thanks to its smartphone expertise), Wi-Fi 7 support, and NPU-based features.
Core Ultra 200V Lineup
The full Lunar Lake launch lineup consists of 9 models, though if you look closely, there are only five different CPU specs. This is due to its on-package memory design – meaning the LPDDR5X modules are not only just soldered to the motherboard, but directly fused onto the CPU package. This will be reflected in the model number, with the SKUs ending in ‘6’ denoting 16GB models, whereas ‘8’ are 32GB variants. All chips run a TDP range of 8-17W (PBP), with the exception of Core Ultra 9 288V running at 17-30W (though all models will boost up to 37W for burst multi-core workloads).
So when will you be seeing the new laptops with Core Ultra 200V series? Intel says these chips will be available starting September 24th, with pre-orders now live.
Pokdepinion: When chipmakers fight for the efficiency leadership, we all win!
