Intel are killing it at IFA with Lunar Lake
We dove deep into Lunar Lake with Intel at IFA 2024, and we are impressed
OC3D is at IFA 2024, where Intel are diving deep into their new Lunar Lake CPU architecture. Unlike Computex, this isn’t just an architectural deep dive, this is where Intel reveals real-world performance numbers for their newest mobile processors.
If there is one thing that Intel wanted to hammer home at IFA, it’s that Lunar Lake is incredibly efficient. Intel focused heavily on power draw with this new CPU generation, and it has proven once and for all that there is more to power efficiency than your CPUs Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). x86 can be more efficient than ARM.
At the start of Intel’s presentation they made some huge claims. For starters, they claimed that their new CPUs drew up to 50% less power than their last-gen Meteor Lake counterparts. Then they claimed that they has the “fastest CPU core” and “Best built-in graphics”, and that they were “Unmatched” when it came to AI.
When it comes to office productivity, Lunar Lake can deliver more productivity performance while consuming over 50% less power than Meteor Lake. In the UL Procyon Office Productivity suite, Intel also beats Qualcomm’s newest SOCs and also consumes less power. In one generation, Intel has managed to kill off claims that ARM is more efficient than x86. With Lunar Lake, Intel aims to destroy the Qualcomm/ARM notebook market.
Real-world efficiency improvements with Lunar Lake
Intel has a lot of demos running at IFA, proving their claims with real-world data. Below, we can see a YouTube video playing with AV1. With Meteor Lake, 11.3 watts of power were drawn. With Lunar Lake 6.36 watts of power were drawn. That’s a 43% reduction in power consumption. Expect your laptop’s battery life to be a lot longer if you move from Meteor Lake to Lunar Lake!
Even during gaming workloads, Intel boasted that they have delivered both performance gains and reduced power draw. This means that users can benefit from higher in-game framerates and a longer battery life. Lunar Lake offers the best of both worlds.
Battery Life Boosted
When comparing a selection of new systems, Intel found that they could deliver higher levels of battery life than their competitors with Lunar Lake. This was using notebooks from the same OEM with 1080p screens and the same 75 Whr battery size. Again, this is a strong result from Lunar Lake, but something we would like to see for ourselves.
New Intel Lunar Lake CPU Schedular – Next-Gen Thread Director
With Lunar Lake, Intel has reworked how their Thread Director system works. Now, a bottom-up method is used for scheduling. First, workloads are placed on a single E-core, then to multiple E-cores for multi-threading. When there is demand, work is moved to P-cores, maximising system performance for the workloads that need it. This schedular is designed to always allocate P-cores to gaming workloads, maximising gaming performance.
This method enables lower power draw and increased system efficiency. It also enables maximum performance when required, giving users a strong balance between battery life, power draw, and system performance.
The Fastest Cores!
With Lunar Lake, Intel claims to have the fastest CPU cores. Their new P-cores deliver performance leads in Cinebench R24, Geekbench 6, and SPECrate2017, besting the latest CPUs from Qualcomm and AMD. This makes us wonder how Intel’s newest cores will perform when they make their way to desktop with Arrow Lake. After all, Intel has just claimed that their new mobile cores are better than AMD’s new Zen 5 mobile CPU cores.
Gaming Graphics on Lunar Lake
Lunar Lake promises to be a game-changer for the mobile gaming market. With their Xe2 graphics architecture, Intel has delivered both performance gains and power draw decreases. That will allow gamers to play more games, and do so without a short battery life. That’s a win-win for gamers, and is potentially transformative for the handheld gaming market.
When compared to Meteor Lake, Intel’s new Lunar Lake iGPU is 31% faster in games on average across 45 games. In the Division 2, Intel’s performance gains are at their highest with 80% gains. In short, Intel’s Xe2 graphics architecture delivers considerable performance improvements to gamers.
Throwing Qualcomm under the bus
As impressive as some aspects of Qualcomm latest laptop chips are, they fall flat when it comes to gaming. Simply put, they don’t aways work. Intel highlights this below with claims that 23 games from their 45 game test suite did not run on Qualcomm’s processor. That’s a greater than 50% failure rate.
For the games that did run, Intel’s new Lunar Lake chip handily outperformed Qualcomm’s SoC. On average, it delivers 68% more performance in the games that worked. This shows that Qualcomm has a lot of ground to cover before their products can be considered gaming ready.
Intel is the new king of integrated graphics!
In their 45 game test suite, Intel showcased 16% better performance than AMD’s new HX 370 chip on average with Lunar Lake. This means that Xe2 beats AMD’s new RDNA 3.5 mobile graphics architecture, making Intel the king of integrated graphics. Yes, there are some instances where AMD’s GPU beats Intel’s, but the 45 game average gives Intel the advantage.
Intel Lunar Lake Gaming Demo
Below, we have a gaming demo showcasing two Intel Lunar Lake CPUs alongside the latest chips from AMD and Qualcomm. Below, Intel has a clear advantage when it comes to performance and power draw. This gives Intel an opportunity to shake up the mobile gaming market. This is especially true for the handheld gaming PC market. The Intel-powered ROG Ally is in Intel’s sights!
Another aspect of Intel’s Lunar Lake GPU is that it features Xe graphics features that Meteor Lake lacked. XMX AI engines are part of Lunar Lake, giving it access to high levels of AI performance and Intel’s highest quality XeSS modes.
While XeSS works on all GPUs, it works best on Intel GPUs with XMX units. These AI accelerators allow XeSS to run at its fastest and deliver higher quality upscaling results. XeSS is a game-changing technology for the mobile PC gaming market, as it brings high-quality AI upscaling into the realm of integrated graphics. After all, AMD’s FSR 2/3 technology isn’t AI based.
Intel has also stated that Xe2 GPUs will benefit from new XMX kernels, which will be supported on all games with XeSS. No game updates are needed for this benefit, just Intel’s Xe2 GPU and drivers.
Using XeSS, Intel has been able to boost the gaming performance of Lunar Lake further with AI upscaling. Below, Intel claims that they can achieve 29-61% performance gains in games with XeSS with Lunar Lake.
Ray Tracing with integrated graphics?
Intel has also showcased the strength of their Xe2’s ray tracing with Lunar Lake, revealing higher levels of performance than AMD’s new Zen 5/RDNA 3.5 chips when ray tracing is enabled. In all instances, Qualcomm’s laptop SoCs were unable to run any games with ray tracing. Again, Qualcomm’s new SOCs aren’t ready for gaming workloads.
A Great AI PC Starts with a Great PC
Intel sees AI as an additive feature. Yes, AI workloads are important, but they aren’t the most important thing. Other aspects of PC performance should not be sacrificed in order to deliver the AI dream. With Lunar Lake, Intel has delivered performance gains in all traditional CPU workloads. Gaming performance has also been improved greatly. Overall, Lunar Lake is the basis of a strong “normal” PC. The AI features of Lunar Lake are the icing on the cake.
Lunar Lake supports AI from its CPU, GPU, and NPU. Those three aspects of AI performance are important, as AI software uses all three. This flexibility creates a strong basis for overall AI performance, which is great news if you want to start using AI software on your PC.
For those who don’t care about AI, the core of what makes Lunar Lake great is that it is good at everything that is core to the PC experience. Battery life is stronger. Performance is stronger. Even gaming is stronger. Lunar Lake is a strong product for Intel, not just a strong product for the emerging AI era.
You can join the discussion on Intel’s Lunar Lake processors on the OC3D Forums.
