Intel’s new 14th-gen Core chip, Meteor Lake, is designed as much for Intel as it is for you. A new disaggregation scheme separates the “processor” into four tiles, cutting power and increasing yields. But a doubling of graphics performance and a new AI engine cater to consumers seeking new features.
Let’s be clear, though: Meteor Lake was not designed with CPU performance in mind. Intel executives describe Meteor Lake as offering the performance of the current 13th-gen chip, Raptor Lake, but at half the power—aided by low-voltage efficiency cores (E-cores) that are new to the platform. Even the way Intel assigns CPU tasks has been flipped on its head, pushing them first toward the lowest-power E-cores, then migrating them to the more power-hungry performance cores if need be.
Intel unveiled its new Meteor Lake platform in an offsite press event in Penang, Malaysia. At Intel’s Intel Innovation conference in San Jose, California. Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger added two more details: that Meteor Lake will launch on Dec. 14, and that it will be branded as the Core Ultra. Acer appeared on stage to show off its own Meteor Lake laptop, and Intel used MSI-branded laptops in Malaysia.
Intel typically unveils a new chip in two parts: It starts with a general architectural overview, explaining how everything works; and then it provides the information that helps influence buying decisions, such as the model numbers, speeds, prices (where applicable), and so on. For now, Intel is only explaining what’s inside its new Core chip. The chip maker isn’t saying when it will ship Meteor Lake, but our guess is that the first chips will go out the door this fall, with January’s 2024 CES show in Las Vegas serving as a venue to launch the chip into mainstream notebooks.
As you might expect, Intel’s new Meteor Lake is quite complicated. Breaking it down into its component parts, however, seems to make the most sense. Intel’s Meteor Lake has four tiles: one each for the CPU, the SOC, graphics, and I/O. We’ll explain each in turn, digressing where necessary to explain how Meteor Lake all fits together.
THE ROAD TO METEOR LAKE
Traditionally, an Intel CPU has been divided into two main parts, packaged together: the CPU and the Platform Control Hub, or PCH. A Direct Media Interface (DMI) bus connected the two. In this scheme, it’s easy to think of the arrangement as
