Unveiling Intel Lunar Lake-MX: 8 CPU Cores, Battlemage tGPU, LPDDR5-8533, and 40% Less Power Consumption

Since AMD introduced the Zen architecture, Intel has had to step up its game to compete and keep up. In desktop processors, it has been able to match or even surpass the latest Ryzen processors, although its power consumption under load is higher. In laptops, the situation is similar, but Intel must acknowledge that processors with high power consumption are not a good idea. Just as Meteor Lake will focus on efficiency, Lunar Lake-MX will be the low-power successor; so, we will see all the details revealed about this architecture.

At this moment, the Arm architecture is becoming increasingly important in the laptop sector. Apple is progressively advancing with its new M3 chips, achieving a new level of performance. These far surpass the M2 chips while offering a faster GPU. On the other hand, Qualcomm showcased its Snapdragon X Elite, which managed to beat in performance and efficiency some CPUs from Intel, AMD, and Apple.

Lunar Lake-MX: features and specifications

Arm holds an advantage over x86 in terms of energy efficiency and lower power consumption, resulting in longer battery life. Intel has been developing Meteor Lake for a December 14th release if there are no delays. This architecture will not offer the best performance and appears to be on par with Intel Core 12 and 13, but it will have lower power consumption and a potent integrated graphics system.

Interesting information has been revealed through Twitter and Anandtech, where they published all the details about Lunar Lake-MX, the next generation that will replace Meteor Lake. This series of processors is intended for ultrabooks, featuring a System-on-Chip (SoC) package similar to Meteor Lake-UP4. It will have a size of 27mm x 27.5mm and integrate two LPDD5X memory chips, with 16 or 32 GB capacity and speeds up to 8,533 MHz. They will also offer an AI accelerator in the form of an NPU, Wi-Fi 7 support, and 40% lower power consumption.

Lunar Lake will utilize a Battlemage graphics system with up to 8 Xe2 cores

These Lunar Lake-MX processors will feature a CPU tile with an 8-core configuration, consisting of 4 P-Cores (Lion Cove) and 4 E-Cores (Raptor Cove). Both Core 5 and Core 7 will use the same core configuration, and the CPU tile will reportedly be manufactured using TSMC’s N3B node. Within this CPU tile, we will also find the integrated GPU, an Xe2 “Battlemage” architecture tGPU.

In Core 5, the tGPU will have a total of 7 Xe2 cores, while Core 7 will scale up to 8 Xe2 cores. Considering that a PC A770 has 32 Xe cores and a laptop A570M has 16, we can get an idea of the performance, although Battlemage will be the new architecture. As for the new tGPU, we know it will be fully compatible with the DirectX 12 Ultimate API and support Intel’s “AI systolic superscaling” technology.

Lunar Lake-MX’s power consumption will range from 8W (passively cooled) to actively cooled versions with 17 to 30W. It has been mentioned that the 12W version of the Arc Xe-LPG will offer 2.5 TFLOPs, similar to an Apple M1. The GPU’s maximum performance will reach 3.8 TFLOPs, below that of an Apple M2. According to Intel slides, Lunar Lake-MX will arrive sometime in 2024.

The Intel Lunar Lake-MX unveiling highlights 8 CPU cores, tGPU Battlemage, LPDDR5-8533 memory, and 40% lower power consumption.