Intel’s Upcoming Core Ultra CPU Spotted, Featuring 64EU iGPU & Massive 128MB Cache
Intel’s Upcoming Core Ultra CPU Spotted, Featuring 64EU iGPU & Massive 128MB Cache
The latest sighting of Intel’s upcoming Meteor Lake-P series CPUs (which will fall under the new Core Ultra branding) is courtesy of SiSoftware Sandra database that provided some rather interesting specs on the silicon – courtesy of leaker @momomo_us.
While it’s still an engineering sample (ES) which meant the clockspeeds are not representative of the final product (runs 1.9GHz in this case, though higher clockspeeds has been seen before) – the most interesting aspects of the chip comes down to the massive pool of cache at a whooping 128MB of capacity. While cache is incredibly fast compared to RAM, one of the downsides is the die area it occupies on the silicon itself can grow quickly, which can affect die area efficiency and power draw.
One possibility to explain the presence of this huge cache pool is the L4 “Adamantine” cache, which was previously uncovered in this patent filing that describes this level of cache that is stacked below the core, SoC and I/O components. The last time Intel had a cache this large on a consumer CPU has to be traced back to 5th Gen Core i5-5775C, which features 128MB of eDRAM, though the chip was merely an one-off at the time.
Such cache sizes can be proven beneficial for the onboard graphics – which is said to feature 64 Execution Units (EUs) from the current Arc Alchemist architecture, and should put its performance slightly below the entry-level Arc A310 desktop card. Intel will also do away with ‘Iris Xe’ branding and instead label it as “Intel Graphics” moving forward. It is said that Meteor Lake-P may feature as much as 128 EUs, making it a possibility to match its performance against Arc A380 desktop card, and some entry-level NVIDIA GPUs such as GTX 1650 and RTX 3050 Laptop GPUs.
Intel is expected to launch the Meteor Lake-P mobile CPUs in Q3 this year, though we haven’t got any details on which month exactly. It’ll be the first generation of chips to receive the revamped naming system which starts with “Intel Core (Ultra) processor 1xxx” moniker.
Source: Wccftech
Pokdepinion: That massive cache pool could be proven to a strong point for ultraportable laptops where dGPU isn’t an option, and is being held back by memory for iGPU performance. Took a page out of AMD’s playbook, isn’t it?
