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The first generation of Intel Core Ultra processors arrived in late 2023, based on the Meteor Lake architecture and pushing Intel's efforts towards AI acceleration. This year, we'll be getting the next generation of Core Ultra processors, also known as Lunar Lake, an overhauled CPU that replaces Hyper Threading technology with a tweaked hybrid design.
While Intel typically launches new architectures on a tick-tock basis, the company has sped things up a bit as it gets into the AI race. Lunar Lake presents a major shift in design once again, doing away with memory dimms or chips and baking RAM directly into the CPU package. Lunar Lake processors will ship with either 16GB or 32GB of LPDDR5X memory hidden away inside. This change allows power consumption to be lowered.
Intel has also reworked its NPU to improve performance further. Intel claims not only 60 percent better battery life for Lunar Lake laptops compared to Meteor Lake, but it also says you'll get up to 4X more performance in AI tasks, and around 14 percent faster CPU performance when measuring clock-for-clock.
The 3D performance hybrid architecture from Meteor Lake has also been tweaked with a new design that includes Lion Cove P-Cores and Skymont E-Cores, doing away with ‘low power E-cores'.
On the graphics side, Lunar Lake will feature an integrated Xe 2 GPU. It will still have the same on-paper specs as the previous Meteor Lake iGPU, like core count and compute units, but thanks to other upgrades under the hood, it can offer significantly more performance. There will be two versions of Intel's Xe 2 iGPU, one configured for low-wattage, intended for lightweight laptops, and a high-watt configuration for larger laptops.
The first Lunar Lake laptops will be launching later this year from 20 OEMs, with around 80 different designs planned between them. If you are concerned about not being able to upgrade or replace RAM, then have no fear, the upcoming wave of new Arrow Lake laptop processors will be your alternative, but we won't learn more about those until a bit later either.
KitGuru Says: What do you all think of Lunar Lake so far? We look forward to getting some real testing time with Lunar Lake later in the year.
