It looks like Apple may must be careful, as a result of Intel and Microsoft are coming for it after the latter two firms reportedly cast an in depth partnership throughout the growth of Intel Lunar Lake chips. Lunar Lake refers to Intel’s upcoming technology of cellular processors which can be aimed particularly on the skinny and lightweight phase. Whereas the specs are mentioned to be pretty modest, some indicators trace that Lunar Lake could have sufficient of a bonus to pose a risk to a few of the greatest processors.
Immediately’s spherical of Intel Lunar Lake leaks comes from Igor’s Lab. The system-on-a-chip (SoC), pictured above, is Intel’s low-power answer made for skinny laptops that’s mentioned to be popping out later this yr. Curiously, the chips weren’t manufactured on Intel’s personal course of, however on TSMC’s N3B node. That is an attention-grabbing growth as a result of Intel usually sticks to its personal fabs, and it even plans to promote its manufacturing providers to rivals like AMD. This time, nonetheless, Intel opted for the N3B node for its compute tile.
The chip additionally sports activities Intel’s next-gen Arc Battlemage built-in graphics, that are mentioned to come back with a most of 64 Xe2 execution models (EUs) and eight Xe2 cores. Rumor has it that Lunar Lake may even provide as much as 32GB of LPDDR5X-8533 reminiscence which will likely be instantly built-in into the SoC. This protects numerous house — in accordance with Tom’s {Hardware}, anyplace between 100 and 250 sq. millimeters. It additionally has a six-tile neural processing unit (NPU).
At most, the SoC is rumored to sport a CPU with a complete of eight cores — 4 efficiency and 4 effectivity. These are rookie numbers in comparison with chips just like the high-end Core i9-13900K, however Lunar Lake stands in a league of its personal, the place it can solely must compete towards the likes of Apple’s M3.
To that finish, it seems that Intel is coming to the battlefield armed to the enamel. Igor’s Lab teased that Intel has been working intently with Microsoft, and that the event of Lunar Lake CPUs was extra of a workforce effort than one may anticipate. The objective was to make Lunar Lake CPUs work significantly effectively with Home windows 11.
The main points of what Intel and Microsoft cooked up collectively are nonetheless unclear, but it surely’s positively a step in the suitable course. Apple’s personal silicon, in addition to its personal ecosystem, is a part of what pushes some shoppers towards getting a MacBook as a substitute of a Home windows-based laptop computer. If Intel and Microsoft managed to work out an answer that might push Lunar Lake to the subsequent degree when used with Home windows, it would change into a drive to be reckoned with later this yr.
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