Intel’s Core Ultra Chips Bring AI and Better Power Efficiency to PC Laptops
Intel’s new Core Ultra chips — which are part of the Meteor Lake line and drop the “i” nomenclature — have dedicated silicon to power AI, run cooler, have better power efficiency, and are coming to a host of mobile computers starting today.
The headline promises of Intel’s Core Ultra mobile processors is what the company says is the “best AI PC experience” available for laptop computers.
“Intel Core Ultra is the first processor built on the Intel 4 process technology and represents the company’s largest architectural shift in 40 years,” Intel says.
“Whether you’re working, learning, streaming, gaming or creating on-the-go, people need more performance and battery life out of their PCs while taking full advantage of the AI capabilities that are increasingly present in operating systems and applications. The AI PC represents a new generation of personal computers to meet this demand. With dedicated AI acceleration capability spread across the central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU) architectures, Intel Core Ultra is the most AI-capable and power-efficient client processor in Intel’s history.”
But the new Core Ultra chips do more than just dedicate silicon space to AI, they also promise significantly better power efficiency and lower operating temperatures than Intel’s previous chips. Power and heat are two areas where Intel and Asus have lagged significantly behind Apple and its M-series chips, and the Core Ultra offerings likely look to close that gap.
Intel says that the new new Evo Edition chips powered by Core Ultra will deliver the “best overall laptop experience” without compromises to performance. The company claims its chips run cooler and have increased power efficiency for 10-plus hours of real-world battery life. They also support instant wake and fast charging.
Intel says that the Core Ultra series utilizes built-in Arc GPU technology that features up to eight X-cores, AI-based X Super Sampling, DX12 Ultimate support, and up to double the graphics performance over the previous generation. The GPU includes support for modern graphics features including hardware-accelerated ray tracing, mesh shading, AV1 encode and decode, HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 2.1 20G.
The processors themselves feature up to 16 cores (six P-cores, eight E-cores, two LP E-cores) and 22 threads as well as up to 5.1 gigahertz maximum turbo. They also support up to 65GB LP5/x and up to 96 GB DDR5 maximum memory capacity.
Consumer devices powered by Intel Core Ultra will be available on store shelves starting today on more than 230 of the world’s first AI PCs from partners including Acer, ASUS, Dell, Dynabook, Gigabyte, Google Chromebook, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft Surface, MSI and Samsung.
Image credits: Intel
