Intel Alder Lake explained: How it enables a new generation of PCs
Intel’s next PC microprocessor, Alder Lake, marks a radical change for Intel. Its first mainstream Core hybrid processor mixes ‘performance’ and ‘efficiency’ engines to deliver either performance or longer battery life when your PC needs it most.
According to Intel, Alder Lake is due “later this fall”, most likely as a 12th-gen Core chip. Intel will manufacture three versions of Alder Lake – one for the desktop, and two more for laptops – with up to 16 cores and 24 threads. Alder Lake will also mark Intel’s introduction of PCI Express 5 and DDR5 memory, executives said at last month’s Intel Architecture Day.
Interestingly, Intel has co-designed with Microsoft a special thread scheduler, destined for Windows 11, that will optimize performance. Desktop and laptop PCs with Alder Lake inside them should mix and match higher performance where it’s needed and offer longer battery life, as Intel continues to get better at assigning the right processor core for the right task. The company says its performance core should deliver 19 per cent more performance than today’s 11th-gen ‘Rocket Lake’ desktop chip.
The bottom line? It’s probably fair to say that a major overhaul of the Intel
