Intel is already working on its third generation of graphics cards

By Kunal Khullar Published June 3, 2024

Two intel Arc graphics cards on a pink background. — Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Intel has officially unveiled its next-generation Lunar Lake mobile chipset in Taiwan ahead of Computex 2024. A refined successor to Meteor Lake, Lunar Lake features a new core architecture, enhanced security, and improved power efficiency as well as Xe2 graphics.

While the new platform focuses on uplifting AI performance and capabilities, the improvements for the GPU seem to be quite captivating. What is even more interesting is that during a session for the updated GPU, a company representative said that Intel is already working on the “next one for Panther Lake generation.”

Recommended Videos

Essentially, Team Blue is preparing the third generation of graphics, which is due to launch with Panther Lake sometime in 2025. While it should naturally bring improvement over Xe2, it is too early to predict what kind of improvements and performance gains Intel has in store for us.

The features for Intel's Xe2 graphics architecture. — Intel

What we do know is that the jump from Meteor Lake to Lunar Lake is impressive, offering up to 1.5x graphics performance at the same power. Considering Xe2 features eight Xe cores for the mobile platform, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Intel increasing that to 12 or even 16 next year.

This is not the first time we are hearing about the third-generation, or Xe3, GPU. Last year harukaze5719 on X (previously Twitter), spotted a LinkedIn profile of an Intel GPU engineer mentioning the third-generation Arc GPUs with the codename “Celestial.” It is expected that Panther Lake would integrate the Xe3-LPG architecture, which could potentially be a scaled-down version of the Celestial Xe3-HPG. At the moment we are not sure if Panther Lake will be targeting the desktop or mobile segment, but it is clear that Xe3 is on its way.

It’s hard to say how far along Celestial is at the moment. At the beginning of the year, Intel confirmed that its Xe2 desktop graphics cards, codenamed Battlemage, were all but done on the hardware front already. At this point, the team is refining software as the architecture gets ready for Lunar Lake. Given how Intel normally releases new generations, we should have much more detail on Xe3 at this point next year.

Topics

Computing Writer

Kunal Khullar is a computing writer at Digital Trends who contributes to various topics, including CPUs, GPUs, monitors, and…

Computing

Intel did the unthinkable with its new Arrow Lake CPUs

A render of an Intel Core Ultra 200-S chip.

It finally happened. Intel killed Hyper-Threading on its desktop CPUs. The new Arrow Lake range, called Core Ultra 200S, ditches the simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) feature that Intel has held onto for more than a decade. And according to Intel, it doesn't need the extra threads to still deliver a generational performance improvement, even up against the best processors.

Intel says the new range, which we break down in detail in our post focused its gaming potential, can deliver an 8% performance improvement in single-threaded workloads over the previous generation, and a 4% uplift compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X. Those are pretty small margins, but the real impressive stuff comes in multi-threaded performance.

Computing

Intel decimates Apple to take battery life crown

The Surface Laptop 7 on a table in front of a window.

It's no secret that a big reason you'll find MacBooks among the best laptops is the insane battery life that Apple's machines are claimed to possess. Intel may have just snatched the battery life crown with its new Lunar Lake mobile CPUs, though. According to a battery test released by Lenovo, its Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition, packed with a Core Ultra 7 258V chip, lasted 23 hours and 54 minutes in a local video playback test, beating both M2 and M3 MacBooks by over five hours.

It's a bold claim, and one that comes shockingly ahead of schedule. Laptops packing Intel's latest chips are set to go on sale on September 24, so reviews should go live around that time. But Lenovo seems to have jumped the gun a bit with its battery test. Although Lenovo doesn't clarify if its test was using a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, it shows a dominant lead for upcoming Lunar Lake laptops. The M2 MacBook lasted 18 hours and 19 minutes, while the M3 MacBook pushed ahead to 18 hours and 32 minutes. Still, they're far behind the nearly 24 hours of battery life Lenovo laptop saw.

Computing

Intel may have been right about killing Hyper-Threading after all

A Core i9-12900KS processor sits on its box.

Intel is getting rid of one of the features that has defined most of the best processors for more than a decade -- Hyper-Threading. It's the branded name Intel uses for simultaneous multi-threading, or SMT, and the company has already confirmed it won't use SMT on its upcoming Lunar Lake mobile CPUs. Rumor has it the company is also ditching SMT for its Arrow Lake desktop CPUs. Surprisingly, according to new leaks, killing SMT might have been the right call after all.

A handful of benchmarks have leaked for Arrow Lake CPUs. Starting off, the Core Ultra 7 265K and Core Ultra 9 285K both popped up in the Geekbench 6 database. The flagship Core Ultra 9 is a 24-core part, and it achieved a score of 21,075 in Geekbench 6's multi-core test. That's slightly above what you'll see with the Ryzen 9 9950X and on-par with the Core i9-14900K, both of which come with 32 threads due to SMT.

nproxy.org