Some leaked images from Intel Lunar Lake have put us on the trail of what we can expect from the chip giant’s next processor platform and its big bets: low consumption and high energy efficiency compete with ARM.

Snapdragon If Qualcomm lives up to its promises and Microsoft can deliver a viable Windows on ARM, they could seriously threaten Intel’s position in the client computing space.

Intel is aware and apart from changing its strategy at the manufacturing level (it will act as a foundry making x86, ARM and RISC chips for third parties) is going to compete with what comes from ARM while maintaining the fundamentals of x86.

Intel Lunar Lake, features

At the beginning of the year, we told you what we knew about this new platform at the time, and the images confirm the main point. It will be built from scratch, will require a new socket and chipsets, will be specially designed for use in a large group of laptops (convertible and 2 in 1) and will be released after the launch of “Meteor Lake” and “Arrow”. Lake’.

Intel claims the series was developed in collaboration with Microsoft to achieve the integration of software and hardware and achieve the highest energy efficiency, which is the key point of this range, with models that will have from 30 at a TDP of just 8 watts and options for not having to equip active fans.

Intel Lunar Lakes will use a form factor called ‘MX’, which are essentially the current low-voltage ‘U’ series processors, but with on-chip memory to minimize PCB size. There will be different sizes depending on the chip approach, with the chip-based design having everything needed.

They may include 16 or 32 GB of RAM with a 160-bit dual-channel (4x sub-channel) interface. Memory speeds will be very high, LP5X-8533and will include a very fast 8 MB SRAM cache located somewhere along the I/O memory. The neural processing unit debuts NPU 4.0an increasingly important component considering the use of artificial intelligence in any technological aspect.

They will also debut a new generation of integrated graphics Xe2-LPG, which is an evolution of the current Arc that will also cover dedicated graphics cards. This GPU architecture will have 64 vector engines and support real-time ray tracing. It will support VVC/H.266 hardware video decoding and will have Display Por 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 outputs.

In terms of CPU architecture, hybrid design that we know, combining Lion Cove and Skymont cores for high performance and efficiency for less demanding tasks. There will be at least four variants depending on the amount of memory and graphics cores:

• Core 7 32 GB: 4P + 4E + 8 Xe2-LPG graphics cores.
• Core 7 16 GB: 4P + 4E + 8 Xe2-LPG graphics cores
• Core 5 32 GB: 4P + 4E + 7 graphics cores Xe2-LPG
• Core 5 16 GB: 4P + 4E + 7 graphics cores Xe2-LPG

With reference to connectivity, must and will be current in terms of supported standards, from Wi-Fi 7 to Thunderbolt, via USB4, HDMI 2.1 or Display Port 1.4. As for the autonomy, 11 hours are indicated for the middle models. In each case, power per watt has to be the best in Intel history.

With these rods, Intel believes that the “Lunar Lake-MX” for notebooks will be able to compete in the same device category in 2025 as the Apple M3 successors that mount the current MacBook Pro. We will have to wait for information from Intel, although it will not be in the short term, as all efforts are directed towards the launch of ‘Meteor Lake’.