Intel launched its total 13th-gen Core (“Raptor Lake”) cellular processor lineup Tuesday morning at CES 2023 for laptop computer and gaming PCs, spearheaded by the 24-core Raptor Lake-HX platform and the Core i9-13950HX, a chip that may run as much as a whopping 5.6GHz.
Intel unveiled 4 13th-gen cellular processor households: the 55-watt HX sequence for artistic professionals, the 45W H-series for high-performance gaming laptops, and the 28W P-series and 15W U-series processors for efficiency and thin-and-light laptops, respectively. What’s new? What Intel calls “endurance gaming” and a brand new Movidius VPU “AI card” for laptops, which sounds conceptually just like the standalone sound accelerators of a pair many years in the past.
Intel mentioned it expects greater than 60 HX-based gaming laptops, with over 250 totally different laptop computer fashions constructed across the remaining cellular processors. These and different 13th-gen Raptor Lake laptops will ship “later” through the first quarter 2023, executives mentioned.
Intel additionally fleshed out its Raptor Lake desktop lineup, after initially announcing the Core i9-13900K processors in late September. (We’ve mentioned these in a separate article.) Intel additionally made good on its promise to get rid of the Pentium and Celeron manufacturers by asserting the Intel Core i3 N-series processors for $500 PCs. All desktop and cellular Raptor Lake chips use the “Raptor Cove” efficiency core design on the Intel 7 course of, optimized for velocity and with bigger caches for improved efficiency and managed by an enhanced Thread Director co-designed by Intel and Microsoft.
Intel
Intel is launching its new processors in what’s a particularly tumultuous market. Mercury Research reported that for each quarter in 2022, the cellular CPU market has recorded unit gross sales at the very least 30 % lower than 2021 as PC makers in the reduction of on stock. Intel, although, slurped up an extra 9.1 share factors out there, giving it an 84 % share of the cellular PC processor market. In different phrases, for those who do spend money on a brand new laptop computer in 2023, you stand a higher probability than ever of discovering one among these chips inside it.
Intel’s Raptor Lake-HX sequence, for video games and sport creators
To be honest, you in all probability received’t find yourself shopping for a Raptor Lake-HX pocket book except you’re a artistic skilled who calls for the perfect. Intel launched the 12th-gen Alder Lake-HX chip final May, and Intel mentioned that that 16-core (eight efficiency, eight effectivity cores) platform was designed for “professionals in the field who need low latency access to data.” The new 13th-gen Raptor Lake-HX platform will increase the core rely to 24 (as much as eight efficiency cores and 16 effectivity cores). But the HX sequence nonetheless solely consists of 32 graphics execution items (EUs).
Intel
There’s a refined however fascinating distinction between the 12th- and 13th-gen chips the place gaming is worried. Last spring, Daniel Rogers, senior director of cellular product advertising and marketing inside Intel’s Client Computing Division, described the older Core i9-12900HK because the “world’s best gaming processor.” Today, Intel is claiming that the costlier Core i9-13950HX is the “best gaming laptop platform.”
Intel
What offers? Colin Helms, the market supervisor for the fanatic cellular group, mentioned that the Core i9-12900HK supplied way more gaming platforms than the 12th-gen HX half. Today, it’s the alternative. “With 13th-gen, it really turns things around… We want to make sure we’re telling the most honest story with our best platform,” he mentioned.
Laptops utilizing 13th-gen HX chips will assist DDR5-5600 (4 DIMMs, two DIMMs per channel), a slight improve from the DDR5-4800 supported by the 12th-gen HX platform. Other than that, the chip appears largely unchanged from the earlier technology: There’s nonetheless assist for PCI Express 5, with 16 lanes (both x16 or 2×8) hanging off the CPU, and assist for 2 (discrete) Thunderbolt 4 controllers. Neither the DMI interface to the PCH nor the PCH itself has modified, so the HX nonetheless helps Killer Wi-Fi 6E, 14 USB-2/10 USB-3 ports, and extra. Bluetooth assist now consists of Bluetooth LE, nonetheless, which permits the laptop computer’s wi-fi radio to stay in sleep mode for much longer, at as much as half the facility.
Intel
Intel is enjoying a bit cagey with the HX efficiency, claiming that it’s 11 % quicker on a per-thread foundation and 49 % quicker throughout all threads—the place the extra cores come into play.
Still, Intel is attempting to string the needle between content material creation and gaming efficiency.
Intel
But Intel in contrast its newest chip to the Core i9-12900HK, not the Core i9-12900HX. Still, you may see from the benchmark slides beneath that content material creation in Blender can enhance a whopping 79 %, with gaming efficiency a extra modest 12 % at most.
Meet Intel’s 13th-gen mainstream Core processors
It’s extra doubtless, nonetheless, that you simply’ll find yourself shopping for an Intel 13th-gen cellular Raptor Lake-H, -P, or -U processor. Our best gaming laptops, for instance, usually characteristic Intel’s H-series chips. But that’s a change: With Raptor Lake, Intel hooked up the “best gaming processor” to the HX household, particularly the Core i9-12900HK. Intel didn’t even hassle to publish any gaming benchmarks to again up the Core i9-13900HK.
Two new, key options ought to curiosity you: “endurance gaming,” and the addition of what’s generally known as a Movidius VPU—AI for Intel laptops, which we’ll dive deeper into in a second.
We’ve included the important thing numbers for the Intel cellular households within the slides beneath, starting with the H- and P-series, which will likely be included in higher-performance laptops.
Here, the brand new Raptor Lake chips look rather a lot just like the 12th-gen Alder Lake processors: There are solely as much as 14 cores (six efficiency, eight effectivity) however with the 96 EUs for graphics that accompanied the 12th-gen Cores, too.
If you find yourself shopping for a Windows pill (like one among Microsoft’s Surface Pro sequence) you’ll doubtless be shopping for one of many 13th-gen U-series cellular processors, beneath. There’s a reasonably steep dropoff by way of efficiency cores (two efficiency cores, at most) however the longer battery life engendered by the decrease 15W thermal design energy is what PC makers will likely be eyeing.
Intel
Otherwise, laptops utilizing the 13th-gen H-, P-, and U-series chip nonetheless will see enhancements that embody assist for both DDR5-5200/DDR4-3200 reminiscence, in addition to low-power DDR5x-4600 and LPDDR4x-4267 reminiscence. Like the 12th-gen chips, Wi-Fi 6E is built-in. Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) has been added, as with the HX platform. Eight lanes of PCI Express 5 have been added, too, however solely on the H-series gaming platforms.
Intel
One space that has obtained a small however vital improve is the built-in Thunderbolt 4 controller, which now helps the redefined DisplayPort 2.1 spec in addition to USB 3.2. The latter’s vital, since that normal permits for USB-C ports to run at 20Gbps through PCI Express, somewhat than the standard 10Gbps. That will enable for quicker exterior SSDs to be linked to 13th-gen Raptor Lake laptops.
Intel isn’t saying a lot in regards to the Core i9-13900HK processors, claiming that they’ll be about 10 % quicker and extra responsive than the Core i9-12900H.
Intel
What is Intel’s endurance gaming?
Gaming laptops have an issue: Gaming on the go can suck energy like mad, which may catastrophically cut back battery life. But gaming laptops are usually optimized for prime efficiency, with high-refresh-rate screens. Intel has struck a compromise: “endurance gaming,” which may dial down the facility that the laptop computer provides to the processor’s built-in graphics, permitting it to run for an extended time frame. Games like League of Legends, Rocket League, and Grand Theft Auto V, which usually run at about 90 minutes in efficiency mode, can run for 4.5 hours in “endurance gaming” mode, at 30 frames per second, executives mentioned. The know-how even prevents display screen tearing, mentioned Jacob Levine, a product engineer.
Endurance gaming will likely be obtainable on just about each Intel cellular Raptor Lake platform save the HX sequence, which makes use of discrete graphics, Helms mentioned. The characteristic will be turned on through the Arc management utility, he mentioned.
The Movidius VPU is Intel’s AI card for PCs
Intel has mentioned earlier than that the (14th-gen?) Meteor Lake chip will include integrated AI. “Select” 13th-gen laptops, nonetheless, will embody a Movidius VPU discrete add-on card inside them, which can allow AI-powered options that had beforehand been reserved for Arm laptops.
After buying Movidius in 2016, Intel started adapting the technology in 2018 to power Amazon Alexa and visible processing items. Four years later, Movidius is a basis of Intel’s AI program. But it’ll pave the way in which for future enhancement, too. For now, the discrete AI card will offload AI processing capabilities till Intel launches a devoted AI chip inside Meteor Lake.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Essentially, Movidius right this moment will energy Microsoft’s Windows Studio Effects, a Windows 11 suite of applied sciences that debuted within the Windows 11 2022 Update and the Arm-powered Microsoft Surface Pro 9. Studio Effects embody background-noise cancellation, a know-how to acknowledge and focus the digital camera in your face, in addition to an AI-powered phantasm that may make it seem like you’re at all times your webcam.
More Evo PCs en route
All of those enhancements will present up on Intel Evo-branded laptops, the premium collaboration between Intel and engineers at third-party laptop computer makers. Over 15 producers have enrolled in this system, with over 100 Evo designs to this point, mentioned Josh Newman, Intel’s vice-president and normal supervisor of product advertising and marketing.
What’s new for Evo? An improved push into “intelligent collaboration,” with extra of a push into improved cameras, audio, and Wi-Fi capabilities. Intel can even embody its Unison app on Evo laptops, which is its personal spin on the Windows Your Phone / Phone Link software program—however with connections to each Android and iPhones.
Alder Lake N / Intel N-series for low-cost PCs
Intel can be asserting a brand new processor for the low-cost PC and Chromebook market: two Core i3 N-series processors. The processors will use “four cores with Intel processor” and “8 cores with Intel Core i3 N-series processor,” with Intel’s Gracemont cores factoring in someplace—it’s not clear the place. Intel casually refers to this chip as “Alder Lake-N.”
Intel
Intel’s new N-series processors will likely be utilized in over 50 designs, Intel executives mentioned, and embody the Core i3-N305 and -N300. Note that these chips will likely be used for each desktop in addition to laptops.
Some of the platform’s capabilities embody Wi-Fi 6E, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and a slew USB2 and USB3 ports hanging off PCI Express Gen 3.
“The whole logic behind this architecture in this space is that people are shopping for PCs in these price bands: They don’t need low cost, they need experiences,” Newman mentioned.