How Intel and Microsoft are teaming as much as tackle Apple

Igor’s laboratory / Intel

It appears like Apple must be looking out as Intel and Microsoft have taken it upon themselves after the latter two corporations reportedly fashioned a detailed partnership within the improvement of the Intel Lunar Lake chips. Lunar Lake refers to Intel’s upcoming technology of cellular processors particularly aimed on the skinny and lightweight section. Whereas the specs are reportedly modest, some indicators recommend that Lunar Lake might have sufficient of a bonus to pose a menace to a few of the finest processors.

As we speak’s spherical of Intel Lunar Lake leaks comes from Igor’s lab. The system-on-a-chip (SoC) pictured above is Intel’s low-power resolution for skinny laptops, scheduled to launch later this yr. Curiously, the chips weren’t manufactured utilizing Intel’s personal course of, however fairly on TSMC’s N3B node. That is an attention-grabbing improvement since Intel sometimes sticks with its personal factories and even plans to promote its manufacturing companies to rivals like AMD. Nevertheless, this time Intel selected the N3B node for its compute tile.

The chip additionally options Intel’s next-generation Arc Battlemage built-in graphics, which is alleged to be outfitted with a most of 64 Xe2 execution items (EUs) and eight Xe2 cores. Lunar Lake can also be rumored to supply as much as 32GB of LPDDR5X-8533 reminiscence built-in immediately into the SoC. This protects numerous area – between 100 and 250 sq. millimeters, in keeping with Tom’s {Hardware}. It additionally encompasses a six-tile neural processing unit (NPU).

In response to rumors, the SoC could have a most of 1 CPU with a complete of eight cores – 4 efficiency and 4 efficiency cores. These are newbie’s numbers in comparison with chips just like the high-end Core i9-13900K processor, however Lunar Lake is in a league of its personal and solely has to compete with chips like Apple’s M3.

Intel/YuuKi-AnS/Twitter

To that finish, Intel seems to be coming into the sport armed to the enamel. Igor’s Lab teased that Intel labored intently with Microsoft and that the event of the Lunar Lake CPUs was extra of a group effort than one would anticipate. The aim was for Lunar Lake CPUs to work notably nicely with Home windows 11.

The small print of what Intel and Microsoft have give you collectively are nonetheless unclear, however it’s positively a step in the best path. Apple’s personal chip and ecosystem are a part of what’s driving some customers to get a MacBook over a Home windows-based laptop computer. If Intel and Microsoft can discover a resolution that would take Lunar Lake to the subsequent degree when used with Home windows, it might change into a pressure to be reckoned with later this yr.

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