In-depth analysis of Intel Core Ultra processor: improve energy efficiency, strengthen core display, and realize comprehensive upgrade of AI PC

[天极网laptop channel] On the afternoon of December 15th, Beijing time, Intel officially released the new Core Ultra processor platform, which is built using Intel 4 process technology and 3D Foveros packaging technology, and has new performance cores and energy efficiency cores. It has up to 6 performance cores, 8 energy efficiency cores and 2 low-power island energy efficiency cores, with a maximum main frequency of 5.1GHz. It also has a new Arc GPU graphics card, equipped with up to 8 units of Xe core display, achieving Double the performance improvement, providing excellent performance for ultra-thin notebooks. It is also equipped with a new NPU for AI acceleration processing, leading the large-scale popularization of local AI computing on computers and widely used AI application scenarios. It brings a new user experience by optimizing AI applications on Core Ultra.

New manufacturing process and 3D Foveros packaging technology

Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) is Intel's first processor product using the Intel 4 process technology. As the most important part of Intel's "four-year, five-node" process development plan, the mass production of Intel 4 marks the Intel has introduced EUV very smoothly, laying a very solid foundation for the smooth development of Intel 3 and subsequent Intel 20A and Intel 18A. Compared with Intel 7, Intel 4 has achieved a 2-fold increase in crystal density, optimized the CPU high-performance logic library, further achieved a higher-density metal layer, and achieved more efficient power supply. Compared with Intel 7, Intel 4 has achieved a 20% improvement in energy efficiency, which is also a very important feature of the Meteor Lake processor.

Meteor Lake adopts a new discrete module architecture, which includes computing modules, SoC modules, graphics modules and IO modules, which are connected through Intel Foveros 3D packaging technology. The architecture is still a high-performance hybrid architecture with new performance cores (Redwood Cove) and energy efficiency cores (Crestmont), which improves performance execution efficiency per watt. At the same time, through a separated modular design, a low-power E-Core is built into an independent low-power island, and the memory controller, video codec, display processing unit, and NPU are integrated on the low-power island. On the machine, a low-power operation processing unit is realized. The modular design also enables independent power supply control of the modules, which more effectively improves the energy consumption management of the entire processor. On top of the hardware, in conjunction with the operating system, the hardware thread scheduler implements more advanced third-order thread scheduling management

Stronger performance and lower power consumption

According to official data, the actual performance of Core Ultra 7 165H is about 8% better than the previous generation Core i7-1370P under the same power consumption, and is about 11% ahead of competitors' products

In terms of productivity, the Core Ultra 7 165H has a 31% performance lead in Video Editing, a 41% performance lead in Premiere Pro, and a 19% performance lead in lightroom compared to products from competitors.

In terms of power consumption, in online video playback scenarios, the Core Ultra, which has a lower power consumption LPE core, can save about 25% of power consumption compared to the previous generation Core i7-1370P, which uses P core and E core. In scenarios such as online video playback, 4K local video, standby, and Teams video conferencing, it can save up to 79% of power consumption compared to products from competing brands.

Arc GPU integrated graphics card with doubled performance

Core Ultra also integrates the new Intel Arc GPU, which uses the new Xe LPG architecture and is equipped with up to 8 Xe core displays, achieving nearly twice the performance improvement compared to the previous generation. It also supports the features of DX12 Ultimate, supporting new graphics features such as hardware ray tracing and mesh shading. In terms of encoding, Arc GPU not only supports H.265 and H.264, but also adds AV1 support, up to 8K 10bit HDR. This integrated display also supports 4 display channels and supports mainstream high-end display interfaces such as HDMI 2.1, DP 2.1 and eDP 1.4b

The new core display, like the Ruixuan independent display, not only supports DP4a instructions, can accelerate AI calculations faster, but also has the XeSS super sampling function. Using AI-enhanced upscaling, it renders at a lower resolution and then uses AI technology to upscale the image to a higher resolution, improving game performance and image fidelity

According to official data provided by Intel, when testing 18 games, the Core Ultra 7 165 has a clear advantage over the previous generation Core i7-1370P. Among them, in "Baldur's Gate 3", the performance improvement reached 100%

After turning on XeSS, the average frame rate of 15 test games including "Hitman 3", "Yakuza 7 Gaiden", "The Witcher 3", "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" and "Cyberpunk 2077" increased. Reached 39%.

In "Ghost Walker 2", the new integrated display (Core Ultra 7 165H) has a very large improvement in 1080P image quality compared to the previous generation Core processing integrated display (Core i7-1370P). Coupled with XeSS technology, at the same resolution, the frame rate is increased by 3 times, and at the same FPS, it will save more power.

The first NPU integrating AI acceleration processing

The Intel Core Ultra processor is a product specially designed for AI PC scenarios. It can be said that a new generation of platforms has emerged. Core Ultra integrates a neural network processing unit (NPU) for the first time, and is supported by the entire range of products, further improving AI energy efficiency and applications on the terminal side

Core Ultra’s CPU, GPU, and NPU can all perform AI processing, and the overall computing power can reach 34TOPs. The new NPU is specially designed for AI workloads and has the advantages of high energy efficiency and low power consumption. It is especially suitable for long-running AI applications, such as video conferencing scenarios involving long-term background blur, task tracking, etc. The addition of NPU can reduce the calls to the CPU and GPU, allowing devices such as thin and light notebooks to provide longer battery life. According to official data, when conducting a Zoom video conference, by transferring these special effects of background removal to the NPU, 38% of power consumption can be saved.

CPU is more suitable for AI needs of lightweight processors and low latency for single inference. GPU is suitable for AI applications that require high performance and high throughput, such as AIGC's Wenshengwen or Wenshengtu. Therefore, after adding NPU to Core Ultra (Meteor Lake), it can provide an efficient artificial intelligence acceleration engine on the PC side, and combine with CPU and GPU to more flexibly respond to AI computing power needs in different scenarios.

Intel not only provides hardware, but also software, such as OpenVINO. OpenVINO is a unified software interface that can encapsulate different underlying architectures into one. In addition, Intel can deploy AI workloads from a CPU to an NPU because the interface is unified

Core Ultra has caught up with the trend of generative AI, and many models have been adapted to the front end, the highest of which can handle large oracle models with 20 billion parameters. For example, the language-based large language BERT, LLaMA2, GLM 2, GLM 3, and many image-based large-scale models, including the recently launched LCM latent consistency model, can all run on the Core Ultra platform. With Core Ultra, generative AI can be performed on thin and light laptops without the need for a separate graphics card, which lowers the threshold for use and improves the user experience

Core Ultra provides very good XPU (CPU/GPU/NPU) computing power, and together with partners, it has made good adaptations for each platform and provided good performance improvements. For example, on the well-known Stable Diffusion open source model of Vincent Tu, Core Ultra has a performance improvement of 1.7 times compared to the previous generation, and a performance improvement of 3.2 times compared to its competitors.

In Intel's ecosystem, a large number of partners are developing AI applications, or using AI to reshape their existing application foundations. They already have more than 100 ISV partners, and more than 300 have AI features. Applications. In order to promote the development of AI PCs, Intel will provide more than 100 million PCs with AI capabilities to the market in the next two years, and embrace the new era of AI PCs with more partners.

There will be more than 230 products on the market, including 11 different SKUs

The new Core Ultra has a total of 11 SKUs, supports up to 6P 8E 2LPE combination, supports 64GB LPDDR5(X)-7467/96GB DDR5-5600 memory, has 1×8 PCle 5.0 high-speed channels, and 20 equivalent to It turns out that the PCIe channel is directly connected to the CPU. It has 4 Thunderbolt 4 interfaces and 8 PCle channels equivalent to the original chipset. It supports Wi-Fi 6E and the latest Wi-Fi 7, and also supports the latest Bluetooth 5.4 specification, providing low-power, high-quality audio connection.

Specifically, the first batch of Core Ultra will have 4 H series products and U series products. Among them, Core Ultra 7 165H and Core Ultra 7 155H are both 6P 8E 2LPE core combinations, with a total of 16 cores and 22 threads, 24MB Level 3 cache, equipped with 8 units of Xe core display; Core Ultra5 135H and Core Ultra5 125H are a combination of 4P 8P 2LPE, with a total of 14 cores and 18 threads, 18MB level 3 cache, and 7 Xe core displays. The basic power consumption of the H series is 28W, and the turbo power consumption is 64W. It has very good power scalability, allowing OEM manufacturers to set higher basic power consumption according to needs. The maximum turbo power consumption can reach 115W, which meets the requirements of Design needs of different notebooks.

U series are all 2P 8E 2LPE core combinations, with a total of 12 cores and 14 threads, 12MB level 3 cache, and provide 4 units of Xe core display. The basic power consumption is 15W and the Turbo power consumption is 57W. Next year, one H series and two U series processors will be launched. Among them, the Core Ultra 9 185H also has 16 cores and 22 threads, 24MB L3 cache, and 8 units of Xe core display. The base power consumption reaches 45W and the Turbo power consumption is 115W. It is more suitable for high-performance all-round notebooks and gaming notebooks; The two U series products have 12 cores and 14 threads. Compared with the above four products, they have lower power consumption. The base power consumption is 9W and the Turbo power consumption is 30W. They are more suitable for super thin and light notebooks or 2-in-1 products

Intel will work with more than 35 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to release more than 230 products equipped with Meteor Lake chips

Write at the end

Through the new Intel 4 process technology and 3D packaging hybrid architecture, the new Core Ultra not only has better performance, but also has better performance in terms of energy efficiency. The more powerful Arc core display will also provide PC equipment Better graphics performance not only provides greater productivity, but can also handle more games, allowing you to have both work and entertainment.

Of course, AI is also a highlight of this Core Ultra. It integrates an NPU specially designed for AI, and combines it with the CPU and GPU to more flexibly respond to AI computing power needs in different scenarios. It fully embraces AI at both the hardware and software levels, actively adapts to various large models, cooperates with partners, develops applications with AI characteristics, and actively promotes the development of AI PCs.

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