Latest news with #Darkmont
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
Intel's upcoming Panther Lake CPU looks like a killer gaming handheld chip thanks to a reported massive graphics upgrade, hefty AI performance and upgraded E-cores
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Intel's 18A process node and the Panther Lake CPU that will be the first to use it are together looking like an absolutely critical turning point for the beleaguered chip maker. The good news for Intel is that Panther Lake is shaping up to be a killer mobile CPU, if the latest reports are accurate. First up, according to some device ID listings uncovered by X user InstLatX64 (via WCCFTech), Panther Lake will be getting Intel's next-gen Darkmont E-cores, not the Skymont E-cores already seen in the Arrow Lake generation of CPUs. This makes sense on two counts. First, Darkmont is said to be a revised and upgraded version of Skymont, rather than a radical new design. Second, Intel is on record that Darkmont is going to be the basis of its Clearwater Forest server chip early next year. And that will be built on 18A silicon. In other words, Darkmont has been designed for 18A, while Skymont would need to be redesigned and ported from the TSMC N3 node on which it's currently being manufactured. Next up, the chip is said to sport 180 TOPS of total AI processing power. That's a big step up over the 120 TOPS of its current Lunar Lake mobile CPU. Lunar Lake largely splits its tops between a dedicated NPU and the GPU, with 48 TOPS from the NPU and 67 TOPS from the GPU. The remaining 5 TOPS come courtesy of the CPU cores. A fair chunk of that step from 120 to 180 TOPS is likely to come from Panther Lake's GPU, arguably the most exciting element of the new chip. It not only gets an upgrade to Intel's new third-gen Celestial GPU architecture, but it also steps up from the eight graphics Battlemage-spec cores in Lunar Lake to 12 cores. It's fairly likely Celestial will be more performant per core than Battlemage. So, an expectation of over 50% more raw performance is reasonable, though that will not necessarily translate into 50%-plus higher in-game frame rates. For the record, Panther Lake will also get Intel's new Cougar Cove P-cores. The top SKU is reported to be a chip with four P-Cores, eight E-cores and a further four low-power E-cores, perhaps of a lower Skymont specification. Anyhow, Panther Lake certainly has the makings of a fantastic chip for handheld gaming PCs. On paper, it should have the measure of AMD's latest Strix Point APU, as seen in the Ayaneo 3. Intel's current Lunar Lake chip, used to great effect in the MSI Claw 8 AI+ A2VM handheld, is pretty competitive with AMD's Strix Point chip, as it is. Add 50% more graphics cores and it should really fly. Moreover, the success of the Panther Lake mobile CPU and its Celestial iGPU should help encourage Intel to keep faith with GPUs generally and roll out a discrete Celestial-based graphics card for desktop gaming PCs. Goodness knows, we need as much competition as we can get in that space. Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Intel Cougar Cove (P), Darkmont (E) core architectures revealed in Panther Lake perfmon commit
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An update by Intel to the perfmon platform has added support for upcoming Panther Lake CPUs, listing their core architecture codenames and CPUID, via InstLatX64. This commit unofficially confirms that Panther Lake will employ Cougar Cove Performance (P) cores, while Darkmont will serve to power its Efficiency (E), and likely Low Power Efficiency (LPE) cores as well. Panther Lake is expected to launch later this year, succeeding current-generation Arrow Lake U/H offerings. With Intel's flagship 18A in risk production, Panther Lake is scheduled for mass production later this year. Hence, it wouldn't be surprising if the bulk of Panther Lake arrives in Q1 next year, similar to how Meteor Lake rolled out. Make no mistake: Panther Lake isn't a successor to Lunar Lake, which was uniquely focused on efficiency as a one-off product, with on-package memory, limited TDP, and a power-optimized design. Current rumors indicate Panther Lake variants will sport up to 18 hybrid cores (6P+8E+4LPE) and 12 Xe cores, based on Intel's upcoming Celestial (Xe3) graphics architecture. Intel positions Panther Lake as combining Arrow Lake's power and Lunar Lake's efficiency, but that's still a somewhat general claim. According to leaks, most Panther Lake systems will include traditional SODIMM/soldered memory, while some laptop designs might even support next-gen LPCAMM, combining fast and upgradeable RAM. Based on their TDP (rumored: up to 64W), Panther Lake chips are expected to power a wide range of devices, including entry-level laptops, handhelds, and gaming laptops. The company is even eying bringing this architecture to automobiles. An Intel engineer has pushed an update to the lookup table for perfmon, adding Panther Lake as a supported architecture. Panther Lake has been marked with the "GenuineIntel-6-CC" identifier, assigning it to CPU Family 6, Model 204 (0xCC). In addition, the patch reports the Cougar Cove and Darkmont architectures for Panther Lake's Performance (P) and Efficiency (E) cores, respectively. Intel's speculated P-core evolution goes from Lion Cove (ARL/LNL) to Cougar Cove (PTL/WCL), and then Coyote Cove (NVL). Likewise, the rumored E-core path is Skymont (ARL/LNL) to Darkmont (PTL/WCL) and Arctic Wolf (NVL). Once again, these are based on preliminary assumptions and a compilation of several leaks, so take them with a heavy dose of skepticism. Essentially, we're seeing a full architectural jump and shift to a leading-edge node, which should yield substantial performance gains. I'm curious to see how much Panther Lake laptops will cost compared to Lunar Lake, which was entirely manufactured by TSMC. With Computex just weeks away, we expect Intel to share finer architectural details at the show. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Yahoo
Intel Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake CPU specs break cover — leak suggests up to 16 CPU cores and 180 total AI TOPS
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In a flurry of tweets detailing Intel's upcoming processors, avid hardware leaker Jaykihn has shared specifications for Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake. Arriving in H2 this year, Panther Lake is the successor to Arrow Lake-H, which launched at this CES. Meanwhile, Wildcat Lake is rumored to power Intel's next-gen N-series chips, designed for lightweight laptops and mini-PCs. Lunar Lake, crowned with the fastest integrated GPU per our testing, is a one-off design, as integrating memory directly into the CPU die has proven too costly for Intel to standardize. With no direct successor to Lunar Lake, Panther Lake follows Arrow Lake in less than one year, built using Intel's flagship 18A process technology. Wildcat Lake has remained chiefly undercover, apart from a few design tools that surfaced at NBD. The same leaker claims it is designed for low-power and low-cost Chromebooks, mini-PCs, and embedded devices, and it succeeds the Alder Lake-N series. There have been rumors of an 18-core counterpart of Panther Lake, though the exact specifications of these SKUs haven't been confirmed, per Jaykihn. Nonetheless, as reflected in the table below, the leaker has relayed details of three finalized Panther Lake variants. The top-end Panther Lake configuration boasts 16 CPU cores, likely based on Cougar Cove and Darkmont, alongside 12 Xe3 (Celestial) GPU cores. The second variant has fewer Xe3 cores but more PCIe 5.0 lanes, likely for a dedicated GPU. The third and last configuration features no E-cores, sticking to a 4P + 4LPE design. Wildcat Lake seemingly only has one variation with six cores (2P + 4LPE), presumably using the exact Cougar Cove and Darkmont cores as Panther Lake. However, the Compute Tile will likely only house the two P-cores, while the LPE-cores are expected to reside in the SoC Tile. On the other hand, 40 AI TOPS could make for some fascinating use cases of these processors in edge and mobile machine learning applications. Some SKUs may use LPCAMM, which offers fast and upgradable memory simultaneously. We don't have an expected release timeframe for Wildcat Lake, but early 2026 or even late 2025 may be potential candidates.
