All Intel Core Ultra 200 processors will be smart. The chip giant cannot do without NPU in the Arrow Lake-S seriessomething that, admittedly, was quite unexpected for me, since this type of solution makes more sense in laptops, where it is rarer to have a dedicated high-performance GPU with specialized hardware for AI, and where efficiency and consumption are higher. impact

AI pressure has influenced the development and design of AMD APUs and Intel processors, that much is clear, and as we can see, even the Intel Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake-S series will not be spared. The NPU implementation includes giving up some of the space available to you at the silicon level to be able to have said solution, and that also means devoting specific resources and some consumption to make it work.

The NPU takes up space and consumes resources, and in this case I have doubts whether its integration is really worth it. I’m not talking without reason, according to the information we have Intel Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake-S processors They will have NPUs with the performance of up to 13 TOPsvery low power that does not reach the minimum 40 TOPs Microsoft Copilot+, which of course would limit its capabilities and functions.

Is there any value in having an NPU whose performance is only 13 TOP? It’s a good question and the truth is this I’m afraid the answer is no.although who knows, in the short to medium term we may see the implementation of some more basic AI-powered features that can utilize NPUs of this type.

Intel Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake-S: smart, but not too smart

Overall, the performance in the INT8 processor of Intel Arrow Lake-S will be like this 37 TOP, adding CPU (15 TOP), GPU (9 TOP) and NPU (13 TOP). The NPU of the Intel Core Ultra 200 Lunar Lake processor itself has maximum performance 48 TOP, so I think the difference between the two families is very clear. If we compare with Snapdragon 50 TOPs.

If we compare the Arrow Lake-S with the Raptor Lake Refresh, the difference is substantial because the latter is only able to achieve performance 11 TOP in INT8 due to lower CPU and GPU performance as it lacks NPU. The new thing from Intel would also outperform the new AMD Ryzen 9000 processors which will not include NPU.

The big difference in performance between the Lunar Lake NPU and the Arrow Lake-S is mainly due to the fact that Lunar Lake uses it latest generation architecture, NPU4, while Arrow Lake-S will use the old architecture. This new architecture is optimized to offer more matrix capacity and also has higher clock frequencies.

We will have to wait to see if this NPU is present in the Intel Core Ultra 200 Arrow Lake-S It really makes a difference or if it remains silicon waste. His poor performance makes me lean more toward the latter option, but we’ll give it credit for now because you never know, we might be in for a surprise.

A collection of various small tweaks/changes shipped with Arrow Lake -S.

All specifications are “up to”, except for TOPS, which may exceed the number shown on the retail product. pic.twitter.com/EyAxyFVZMf

— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) July 9, 2024

AI generated cover image.