In February 2023, a leak from a well-known industry insider said Intel's Meteor Lake processors were aiming for more than 50 per cent better performance per watt than the 13th generation Raptor Lake chips. Meteor Lake was Intel's first high-volume client processor built from separate tiles (chiplets) joined with its Foveros 3D packaging, with a hybrid x86 core design and a much larger tiled GPU. This article reports what was known in February 2023; an update at the end records how the product actually launched.
Key takeaways
- The more than 50 per cent performance-per-watt target came from a leak, not from Intel, and was reported as such at the time.
- Meteor Lake splits the processor into four tiles: compute, graphics, SoC and I/O, stacked on a base die with Foveros.
- The compute tile uses Redwood Cove performance cores and Crestmont efficient cores.
- The graphics tile was expected to roughly double integrated GPU performance with 128 execution units.
- Update: Meteor Lake launched in December 2023 as Intel Core Ultra (Series 1) for laptops, not under the 14th generation name, and a desktop version did not ship.
The report (February 2023)
Intel's Meteor Lake processors, at the time widely called 14th generation, were set to release later in 2023 with a focus on the mobile (laptop) platform. These chips were to be Intel's first mainstream processors built on chiplet technology, with a hybrid x86 core architecture.
Based on information shared by the leaker and insider OneRaichu, who had a good track record, the Meteor Lake CPUs were reported to be targeting big performance and efficiency gains. There had also been rumours that the planned desktop line-up had changed. The details indicated that Meteor Lake would aim to increase performance per watt by over 50 per cent compared with the then-current generation. That would be a significant improvement, surpassing the roughly 25 per cent performance-per-watt gain reported for AMD's Zen 4 architecture when it launched in 2022.
It helps to be precise about what "50 per cent better performance per watt" means. If a Raptor Lake chip scores 100 points in a benchmark at 30 W, it delivers 3.33 points per watt. A 50 per cent gain is 5 points per watt: either the same 100 points at 20 W, or 150 points at 30 W, or anything in between. The target says nothing about peak performance at high power. (Illustrative numbers.)
Graphics: the tiled GPU
The Meteor Lake CPUs were also expected to see a 2x boost in GPU performance thanks to the new tGPU, or tiled GPU, built from Xe GPU cores. This configuration was said to have 128 execution units running at clock speeds above 2.0 GHz.
The GPU was described as a tiled Arc-based graphics design that is neither a classic integrated GPU nor a discrete GPU, but a GPU on its own tile in the same package. The first version of this article named the architecture Xe-HPG, the one used in Arc discrete cards. Intel's published name for the Meteor Lake graphics is Xe-LPG, a lower-power derivative of the same Arc generation; its largest configuration has 8 Xe cores, which equals the 128 execution units (vector engines) reported in the leak. It was to offer higher performance at the efficiency of earlier integrated GPUs, with support for DirectX 12 Ultimate and Intel's XeSS upscaling.
The 2x performance gain and new features were seen as a threat to AMD's RDNA 3-based integrated graphics and as extra pressure on NVIDIA's entry-level laptop GPUs.
The tiled architecture
Meteor Lake uses a tiled architecture with four main tiles: the I/O tile, the SoC tile, the graphics (GFX) tile and the compute tile. The first version of this article said the compute tile includes the CPU tile and the GFX tile. That is not right: the compute tile holds the CPU cores, and graphics sits on its own tile. The CPU cores use a hybrid design of Redwood Cove P-cores and Crestmont E-cores for higher performance and lower power consumption.
| Tile | Main contents | Process (as published by Intel) |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | Redwood Cove P-cores, Crestmont E-cores, shared cache | Intel 4 |
| Graphics | Xe-LPG GPU, up to 8 Xe cores | TSMC N5 |
| SoC | Two low-power E-cores, NPU (AI engine), media engine, display, memory controller | TSMC N6 |
| I/O | Thunderbolt, PCIe and other external interfaces | TSMC N6 |
| Base die | Foveros interconnect that the four tiles sit on | Intel 22FFL |
Why split a processor into tiles?
- Right node for each job: CPU cores benefit from the newest, fastest transistors; I/O and analog circuits gain little from shrinking, so they can use an older, cheaper node.
- Yield: smaller dies yield better. A defect scraps one small tile rather than one large monolithic die.
- Reuse and mix: different product variants can combine different compute or graphics tiles without redesigning everything.
- Power management: with low-power cores in the SoC tile, light tasks such as video playback can run with the compute tile powered down, which is a large part of the efficiency gain.
The trade-off is packaging cost and complexity, plus power and latency spent moving data between tiles. Foveros keeps those die-to-die links short and dense.
Meteor Lake was not the first chiplet processor in the industry, nor Intel's first use of Foveros. AMD has built Ryzen and EPYC processors from chiplets since its Zen 2 generation in 2019, and Intel's own Lakefield (2020) used Foveros in small volumes. Meteor Lake was Intel's first high-volume client product to use the approach.
Production plans
Intel confirmed that it would ramp up production of Meteor Lake CPUs in the second half of 2023, on its Intel 4 process for the compute tile.
Update: how Meteor Lake launched
This section was added after the original article; the sections above read as written in February 2023.
- Branding: Meteor Lake launched on 14 December 2023 as Intel Core Ultra (Series 1) for laptops, with Intel dropping the generation number from its main brand. The 14th generation Core name went instead to the Raptor Lake Refresh desktop processors released in October 2023.
- Desktop: the desktop version of Meteor Lake, the subject of the rumours mentioned above, did not ship.
- AI engine: Meteor Lake added a neural processing unit (NPU) in the SoC tile, Intel's first in a mainstream PC processor, a point the February 2023 leaks did not cover.
- Efficiency: whether the more than 50 per cent performance-per-watt target was met depends heavily on workload and power level. Independent reviews generally found clear gains in light and idle workloads and graphics, and smaller gains in heavy CPU workloads. Readers should treat the original leak figure as a target, not a measured result.
FAQ
Is Meteor Lake 14th generation?
It was widely expected to be, and this article first used that name. At launch Intel branded it Core Ultra Series 1; the 14th generation Core name went to Raptor Lake Refresh desktop chips.
What is a tGPU?
A term used in the leaks for a tiled GPU: graphics built on its own die and joined to the rest of the processor in one package, rather than on the same die as the CPU.
What is Foveros?
Intel's 3D packaging technology, which stacks chiplets on a base die and connects them through dense vertical links.
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