Intel launched its total Thirteenth-gen Core (“Raptor Lake”) cell 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 Thirteenth-gen cell 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 completely different laptop computer fashions constructed across the remaining cell processors. These and different Thirteenth-gen Raptor Lake laptops will ship “later” throughout the first quarter 2023, executives mentioned.
Intel additionally fleshed out its Raptor Lake desktop lineup, after initially saying the Core i9-13900K processors in late September. (We’ve mentioned these in a separate article.) Intel additionally made good on its promise to remove the Pentium and Celeron manufacturers by saying the Intel Core i3 N-series processors for $500 PCs. All desktop and cell Raptor Lake chips use the “Raptor Cove” efficiency core design on the Intel 7 course of, optimized for pace 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 Analysis reported that for each quarter in 2022, the cell CPU market has recorded unit gross sales not less than 30 % lower than 2021 as PC makers in the reduction of on stock. Intel, although, slurped up a further 9.1 proportion factors available in the market, giving it an 84 % share of the cell PC processor market. In different phrases, in the event you do put money into a brand new laptop computer in 2023, you stand a better probability than ever of discovering one among these chips inside it.
Intel’s Raptor Lake-HX sequence, for video games and recreation creators
To be truthful, you most likely gained’t find yourself shopping for a Raptor Lake-HX pocket book until you’re a artistic skilled who calls for the easiest. Intel launched the Twelfth-gen Alder Lake-HX chip final Could, 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 brand new Thirteenth-gen Raptor Lake-HX platform will increase the core rely to 24 (as much as eight efficiency cores and 16 effectivity cores). However the HX sequence nonetheless solely contains 32 graphics execution items (EUs).
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There’s a delicate however attention-grabbing distinction between the Twelfth- and Thirteenth-gen chips the place gaming is worried. Final spring, Daniel Rogers, senior director of cell product advertising inside Intel’s Consumer Computing Division, described the older Core i9-12900HOk because the “world’s best gaming processor.” In the present day, Intel is claiming that the dearer Core i9-13950HX is the “best gaming laptop platform.”
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What offers? Colin Helms, the market supervisor for the fanatic cell group, mentioned that the Core i9-12900HK supplied way more gaming platforms than the Twelfth-gen HX half. In the present day, it’s the other. “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 Thirteenth-gen HX chips will help DDR5-5600 (4 DIMMs, two DIMMs per channel), a slight improve from the DDR5-4800 supported by the Twelfth-gen HX platform. Aside from that, the chip seems to be largely unchanged from the earlier technology: There’s nonetheless help for PCI Categorical 5, with 16 lanes (both x16 or 2×8) hanging off the CPU, and help 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 help now contains Bluetooth LE, nevertheless, which permits the laptop computer’s wi-fi radio to stay in sleep mode for much longer, at as much as half the ability.
Intel
Intel is taking part in just a little 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.
Nonetheless, Intel is making an attempt to string the needle between content material creation and gaming efficiency.
Intel
However Intel in contrast its newest chip to the Core i9-12900HK, not the Core i9-12900HX. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to 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 Thirteenth-gen mainstream Core processors
It’s extra probably, nevertheless, that you just’ll find yourself shopping for an Intel Thirteenth-gen cell Raptor Lake-H, -P, or -U processor. Our greatest gaming laptops, for instance, sometimes characteristic Intel’s H-series chips. However that’s a change: With Raptor Lake, Intel connected the “best gaming processor” to the HX household, particularly the Core i9-12900HK. Intel didn’t even trouble 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 cell households within the slides beneath, starting with the H- and P-series, which will likely be included in higher-performance laptops.
Right here, the brand new Raptor Lake chips look quite a bit just like the Twelfth-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 Twelfth-gen Cores, too.
If you find yourself shopping for a Home windows pill (like one among Microsoft’s Floor Professional sequence) you’ll probably be shopping for one of many Thirteenth-gen U-series cell 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.
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In any other case, laptops utilizing the Thirteenth-gen H-, P-, and U-series chip nevertheless will see enhancements that embody help for both DDR5-5200/DDR4-3200 reminiscence, in addition to low-power DDR5x-4600 and LPDDR4x-4267 reminiscence. Just like the Twelfth-gen chips, Wi-Fi 6E is built-in. Bluetooth Low Vitality (Bluetooth LE) has been added, as with the HX platform. Eight lanes of PCI Categorical 5 have been added, too, however solely on the H-series gaming platforms.
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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 customary permits for USB-C ports to run at 20Gbps through PCI Categorical, slightly than the traditional 10Gbps. That may permit for quicker exterior SSDs to be linked to Thirteenth-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.
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What’s Intel’s endurance gaming?
Gaming laptops have an issue: Gaming on the go can suck energy like mad, which might catastrophically cut back battery life. However gaming laptops are sometimes optimized for top efficiency, with high-refresh-rate screens. Intel has struck a compromise: “endurance gaming,” which might dial down the ability that the laptop computer provides to the processor’s built-in graphics, permitting it to run for an extended time frame. Video 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 expertise even prevents display tearing, mentioned Jacob Levine, a product engineer.
Endurance gaming will likely be accessible on just about each Intel cell 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 embody built-in AI. “Select” Thirteenth-gen laptops, nevertheless, 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 shopping for Movidius in 2016, Intel started adapting the expertise in 2018 to energy Amazon Alexa and visible processing items. 4 years later, Movidius is a basis of Intel’s AI program. However it’ll pave the best way for future enhancement, too. For now, the discrete AI card will offload AI processing features till Intel launches a devoted AI chip inside Meteor Lake.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Basically, Movidius as we speak will energy Microsoft’s Home windows Studio Results, a Home windows 11 suite of applied sciences that debuted within the Home windows 11 2022 Replace and the Arm-powered Microsoft Floor Professional 9. Studio Results embody background-noise cancellation, a expertise to acknowledge and focus the digicam in your face, in addition to an AI-powered phantasm that may make it appear like you’re at all times your webcam.
Extra 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 thus far, mentioned Josh Newman, Intel’s vice-president and basic supervisor of product advertising.
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 Home windows Your Telephone / Telephone Hyperlink software program—however with connections to each Android and iPhones.
Alder Lake N / Intel N-series for low-cost PCs
Intel can also be saying 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.”
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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. Word that these chips will likely be used for each desktop in addition to laptops.
Among the platform’s capabilities embody Wi-Fi 6E, DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and a slew USB2 and USB3 ports hanging off PCI Categorical 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.
