Intel's Lunar Lake is here to change how we think about AI PCs because "an NPU isn't enough for the AI Market"

At the launch of Intel's Core Ultra 200V processors (code-named "Lunar Lake"), Vice President of the Client Computing Group Josh Newman described the intention behind the new chipset by claiming "You can’t build a great AI PC without building a great PC.”

Restating many of Intel's claims from Computex earlier this summer, Newman cited historic x86 performance with up to 50% lower power consumption, the fastest CPU cores, the best built-in graphics, and up to 120 TOPS of AI performance as evidence that they had built just that.

Intel officially launches its Core Ultra 200V series of processors today, September 3, 2024, in Berlin, Germany just ahead of the IFA Berlin 2004 trade show. Laptops featuring the Intel Core Ultra 200V processors are now available for pre-order and are expected to be in customers' hands by September 24, 2024.

While the details of the Lunar Lake chipset haven't changed since Intel detailed the silicon in-depth as part of Computex in Taipei back in June, Intel brought a ton of performance data to compare the new Intel Core Ultra 200V series against the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and AMD Ryzen AI 300.

Newman also confirmed several other bells and whistles coming to the Lunar Lake platform, like integrated Wi-Fi 7, Thunderbolt 4 support, Intel Bluetooth 5.4 over PCie, and connectivity solutions like Intel Killer Network, and Intel Connectivity Performance Suite.

Intel is reinvesting in the Intel Evo platform, he shared, as Lunar Lake "was built with Intel Evo in mind." Evo platforms will be certified after 12 months of rigorous testing and provide all the Intel Core Ultra 200V series benefits alongside a cool, quiet user experience, ePEAT Gold certification, Wi-Fi 7, and a higher camera quality.

Newman also discussed the new V-suffix attached to all "Lunar Lake" systems. As a new suffix for Intel, it will be used exclusively for Lunar Lake processors and those with integrated Arc GPUs. "It doesn't stand for anything," Newman confirmed during a Q&A session during the launch event.

To Intel, "V" is simply a way to distinguish the processor numbers. Much like the "U," "S," and "H" suffixes don't theoretically mean anything, the V-series may earn an implied meaning if the architecture sticks around into the future.

Tracking Lunar Lake performance

Intel is still calculating the Intel Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake systems' AI performance across the NPU, GPU, and CPU, equalling up to 120 TOPS (48 TOPS on the NPU, 67 TOPS on the GPU, and 5 TOPS on the CPU).

However, as Intel's VP of AI and Technical Marketing Robert Hallock told the audience of assorted media, industry analysts, and Intel personnel, “TOPS is kind of a goofy metric… It’s a theoretical peak” of AI speed. So while measuring the theoretical peak potential of any hardware to complete AI operations is useful, it isn't the ultimate test of performance.

Intel's AI Roadmap for 2025 indicates that software partners expect AI processes to require a split of 30% NPU power, 40% GPU power, and 30% CPU power because, as Hallock claimed, “an NPU is not enough for the AI Market.”

“The real test of AI” is the software shipping to customers compared to benchmarks. “Both Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake provide better AI performance than Qualcomm.” More AI features and models running than the competition. “AI runs best on Intel” because of a combination of hardware and software features

So how does the Intel Core Ultra 200V "Lunar Lake" series compare to the Ryzen AI 300 series and Qualcomm Snapdragon X platform?

So how does the Core Ultra 200V hardware stack up to Qualcomm and AMD?

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For all that Lunar Lake offers the latest in mobile computing like Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5, the most important information Intel offered on the new chipset is performance data. And Intel did not leave us hanging, offering a ton of performance information collected on reference customer systems, not custom-spec hardware.

The systems were running an almost-finalized set of drivers, though Intel expects a bit of a performance boost compared to these numbers once the systems launch. All performance benchmarks were run with the systems in the "Best Performance" power profile in Windows Settings, while the battery tests were run in the "Best Efficiency" profile.

Intel claims Lunar Lake systems perform 1.2x better on the UL Procyon Office Productivity benchmark than the Qualcomm XIE-80-100 Snapdragon X Elite chipset and 2.29x better than the Meteor Lake Intel Core Ultra 7 165H. Intel also claims that gaming on Lunar Lake offers up to twice the GPU power efficiency compared to Meteor Lake, with the processor taking up 50% less power than Meteor Lake.

Intel also claims the best battery life on the UL Procyon Office Productivity battery life benchmark compared to Qualcomm and AMD competitor units.

Overall, Intel claims 20% faster performance with Lunar Lake systems on Cinebench 2024, 21% better performance on Geekbench 6.3, 61% better performance on SPECrate 2017 compared to Intel's Meteor Lake series, AMD's Ryzen AI 300 series, and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elie XIE-80-100 chipsets.

Intel also indicated the Core Ultra 200V series chips offer up to 3x the performance per thread, so 8 threads of Lunar Lake are 10% better than 22 threads of Meteor Lake at 17 Watts of CPU power.

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The Intel Arc GPU integrated inside the Lunar Lake processor has also been upgraded, using the Intel Xe2 GPU architecture with full support for ray tracing. The new iGPU architecture offers about 31% faster graphics compared to an Intel Core i7 155H Meteor Lake iGPU across 45 games.

Intel also compared the Lunar Lake iGPU to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite XIE-84-100 and AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 integrated graphics chipsets. Lunar Lake is about 16% faster than the integrated AMD Radeon graphics chip on the Ryzen AI HX platform across all 45 games. The Lunar Lake iGPU is about 68% faster than the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (based on the 22 games that run on both systems).

Intel is also offering XeSS super-sampling support on over 120 games which can offer up to 60% faster gaming on applicable titles compared to Meteor Lake. XeSS also offers ray tracing, which is about 30% faster than the AMD Strix Point integrated graphics card, with Intel's 99th percentile being over 30 FPS.

That's pretty decent graphics performance for an integrated GPU. So more games are fully playable on ultra-thin and light systems powered by Intel Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake systems.

Intel also broke down all nine of the processors that will be released in the Intel Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake family. Intel will be releasing more Intel Core Ultra 200 processors with the usual "U" and "H" series, though information on those processors will be shared at a later date.

Laptop Mag's IFA Berlin 2024 Issue celebrates one of the world's longest-running consumer tech expos, Germany's own Internationale FunkAusstellung Berlin.

Our on-the-ground team will bring you all the news emerging from the showroom floor of Messe Berlin and highlight the best in consumer tech as we announce our inaugural Laptop Laurel winners for best-in-show products.

Head over to Laptop Mag's IFA Berlin 2024 Issue for more coverage.