Intel’s Core Ultra 200V “Lunar Lake” chips promise big gains in graphics and AI performance

The first PCs powered by Intel's new Core Ultra 200V series mobile processors are available for pre-order starting today. These chips, formerly known by the code-name "Lunar Lake," are the company's second-gen processors to feature an integrated neural processing unit (NPU) for hardware-accelerated AI performance, but the first to offer enough AI horsepower to qualify as Microsoft Copilot+ PCs.

But assuming you're one of the many, many people who don't actually care that much about on-device AI capabilities, Intel's new chips still have a lot to offer. Intel says they bring a 30% boost in graphics performance compared to Meteor Lake, up to three times the performance per CPU core, and up to 50% lower power consumption. That said, there are also some dramatic changes when compared with Intel's previous-gen mobile chips.

For one thing, RAM is now integrated on the same package as the CPU, GPU, ad NPU. That leads to performance and efficiency improvements, but it also means that memory is not user-upgradeable.

Another change is that Intel is dropping support for hyperthreading with this generation. That means an 8-core processor has 8 threads.

And the number of CPU cores available isn't as high as the past few generations. All of the Intel Core Ultra 200V series processors available at launch are octa-core chips that feature 4 high-performance "Lion Cove"  CPU cores and 4 energy efficient  "Skymont" cores.

Processor Cores / Threads P + E  cores Cache Max Turbo freq (P-core / E-core)  GPU Max RAM NPU Processor base / max turbo power) Intel Core Ultra 9 288V 8 4 + 4 12MB 5.1 GHz / 3.7 GHz Intel Arc 140V (8 x Xe2 cores @ 2.05 GHz) 32GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 48 TOPS 30W (min 17W) / 37W Intel Core Ultra 7 268V 8 4 + 4 12MB 5 GHz / 3.7 GHz Intel Arc 140V (8 x Xe2 cores @ 2 GHz) 32GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 48 TOPS 17W (min: 8W) / 37W Intel Core Ultra 7 266V 8 4 + 4 5 GHz / 3.7 GHz Intel Arc 140V (8 x Xe2 cores @ 2 GHz) 16GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 48 TOPS Intel Core Ultra 7 258V 8 4 + 4 12MB 4.8 GHz / 3.7 GHz Intel Arc 140V (8 x Xe2 cores @ 1.95  GHz) 32GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 47 TOPS Intel Core Ultra 7 256V 8 4 + 4 12MB 4.8 GHz / 3.7 GHz Intel Arc 140V (8 x Xe2 cores @ 1.95  GHz) 16GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 47 TOPS Intel Core Ultra 5 238V 8 4 + 4 8MB 4.7 GHz / 3.5 GHz Intel Arc 130V (7 x Xe2 cores @ 1.85 GHz) 32GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 40 TOPS Intel Core Ultra 5 236V 8 4 + 4 8MB 4.7 GHz / 3.5 GHz Intel Arc 130V (7 x Xe2 cores @ 1.85 GHz) 16GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 40 TOPS Intel Core Ultra 5 228V 8 4 + 4 8MB 4.5 GHz / 3.5 GHz Intel Arc 130V (7 x Xe2 cores @ 1.85 GHz) 32GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 40 TOPS Intel Core Ultra 5 226V 8 4 + 4 8MB 4.5 GHz / 3.5 GHz Intel Arc 130V (7 x Xe2 cores @ 1.85 GHz) 16GB (LPDDR5x-8533) 40 TOPS

Unlike Intel's previous-gen Meteor Lake processors, all of the new Lunar Lake chips feature Intel Arc-branded graphics, with up to 8 Intel Xe2 CPU cores, 64 vector engines, 8MB of cache, and support for DirectX12 Ultimate, Intel XeSS (Super Sampling) and XMX (Matrix Extensions) for AI-enhanced upscaling and raytracing.

The new chips feature Intel's next-gen  NPU with up to four times the performance for on-device AI capabilities.

And when it comes to power efficiency, it's interesting to note that Intel isn't just comparing its new chips to previous-gen Intel or AMD processors, but also Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series ARM-based chips for Windows PCs. For example, Intel says that when running the UL Procyon Office Productivity test on a PC with an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V Lunar Lake processor and leveraging the chip's energy-efficient "Skymont" CPU cores, package performance is 7% higher than a similar system with a Core Ultra 7 165H Meteor Lake chip or a Qualcomm Snapdragon X1E-80-100 processor, but power consumption is lower in both cases and performance-per-watt is 2.29X better than Meteor Lake and 1.2X better than Snapdragon X.

Keep in mind that this is a cherry-picked benchmark, but it's still pretty impressive when many folks had expected Snapdragon X to be a clear leader in efficiency and long battery life.

And they also support features including integrated WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless capabilities, four PCIe 5.0 lanes and five PCIe 5.0 lanes, and support for Gigabit Ethernet, as well as support for up to three Thunderbolt 4 ports, as well as Thunderbolt Share).

Intel says we can expect Lunar Lake PCs from more than 20 companies in the coming days, with many going up for pre-order this week and shipping as soon as September 24, 2024.

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal * If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it. Join 9,577 other subscribers