Intel has confirmed that the 14th-gen Meteor Lake series of Intel CPUs are going to release this year. But don’t expect desktop to get higher powered models.
Not so long ago, Intel had announced that the 14th-gen version of Intel Core processors, named Meteor Lake, will bring something new to the tech, something Intel has never done before.
Intel Meteor Lake CPUs will use a tile-based design. Where the processor will not be a single, monolith one, but instead will have smaller tiles inside it.
Simply put, it will basically have 4 tiles (5 if you count the base):
- The CPU tile, which will have P and E cores, among other things.
- The GFX tile, which will have the GPU, which is the graphics processor.
- The SoC tile, which will look after the RAM, display ports, media playback and others.
- The I/O tile, which will look after PCIe, SATA, USB, Ethernet and other connections.
The above tiles will be combined to make a single Meteor Lake CPU.
In this tile based architecture, Intel was forced to follow AMD, as this is something that AMD does with it’s Ryzen processors. However, AMD does it slightly differently, where it splits the two 8-core (max) CPUs into a chiplet form and also has an additional third SoC chiplet. Here, Intel is putting all the CPU cores inside a single tile instead.
But why do it in the first place. It’s because making smaller chiplets / tiles by splitting things is cheaper, for a start. Another thing is, there are rumors that just like how TSMC is making Intel ARC graphics card chips, they would make Intel GPU chips in Meteor Lake too.
But what about the Meteor Lake Release Date. Looks like Intel has given more information on it.
Intel Confirms Meteor Lake Coming In 2H23
In its quarterly earnings report, Intel has confirmed that Intel Meteor Lake CPUs are coming in the second half of this year.
It mentions it is based on Intel 4 process, which actually can be called 7nm, but it is similar to TSMC’s N4 process.
Additionally, it mentions that Intel is ramping up it’s production in this current second quarter of the year, so that it can release the chips by the second half of this year.
Why is all this a surprise. This is because there were rumors that Meteor Lake will not release this year, but instead the current-gen Raptor Lake is going to get a refresh. Now, Raptor Lake Refresh could happen, but Meteor Lake coming this year is a good thing.
Not only that, it mentions that the 15th-gen Intel Core CPUs, named Arrow Lake, are going to come next year, in 2024.
Not to forget, Intel claims Intel 3, Intel 20A (2nm) and Intel 18A (1.8nm) nodes are on track. Those unaware, starting 2nm, Intel will not use nm (nanometer) but a (angstrom) instead.
In all, Intel claims that it remains on track to achieve 5 process nodes in 4 years.
But in all this. There’s one thing. Intel Meteor Lake’s new tile architecture might not be broadly available on desktops.
Meteor Lake Desktop Might Have Only i3 And i5 CPUs
A couple of months ago, we shared how rumors are going around that Intel may or may not release Meteor Lake on desktop. It mentioned that if at all, it will be limited to 6 cores. Looks like there’s an update to it.
In a tweet, @SquashBionic has shared a photo which basically confirms the above.
The table in the photo confirms some things. First is, Meteor Lake is coming on desktop. Second is, it’s going to use a new socket, LGA1851. However, the biggest and most important is, it will have CPUs only up-to i5 and will be limited by 35W and 65W CPUs.
What does the above mean. It means that Intel Meteor Lake CPUs will have only i3 and i5 processors. With higher powered CPUs, like 125W using i7 and i9, being reserved for 15th-gen Arrow Lake CPUs.
This revelation, if true, basically confirms the previous rumors, which mention that the P-Cores in Meteor Lake will be limited to 6, which is only found in Intel Core i5 processors.
This is not the first time Intel has done something like this, though. For example, all the CPUs in the current-gen Intel Raptor Lake line-up are not actually based on Raptor Lake. Some CPUs in the i5 and i3 line-up are said to be based on previous-gen Alder Lake CPUs, just that they have an increased clock rate to appear faster.
Intel Meteor Lake Could Come With L4 Cache
The rumors about the Meteor Lake don’t seem to conclude, which is a good thing, as it seems to come with a lot of new features. One of them is L4 Cache.
In the patches released for Linux, Intel has basically confirmed that Intel Meteor Lake is going to have L4 cache.
But if that’s not an indication enough, it seems that some years ago Intel had filed a patent for the same. It mentions the use of L4 Cache in detail.
While L4 cache is not entirely new, Intel has used it previously for GPU inside the CPU and it’s mostly for performance reasons. The patent mentions a lot of things Intel is wanting to do with it.
But mainly, Intel seems to concentrating on the security improvements it can offer. It mentions that due to faster access time (compared to RAM), it can be used for pre-boot security purpose among other things.
This could mean that this extra cache is possibly not a counter to the AMD Ryzen X3D processors.
What’s interesting is that it seems that Intel will put this L4 cache on the base of the CPU, not inside any of the tile, at least from the looks of it.
Either way, all this is to be seen. Will Intel, which is known for delays, release Meteor Lake on time. Whether it comes on desktops. Will the new L4 cache, offer any performance benefits. Only time will tell all that.
