Thin-and-light gaming laptops could be revolutionized if this Lunar Lake leak is anything to go by

Date:
Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:17:06 +0000

Description:
A fresh Lunar Lake leak is another sign that standalone GPUs are on their way out.

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Weve just caught a glimpse of the potential performance level of the integrated graphics with Lunar Lake powered by Intels next-gen Xe2
Battlemage architecture and this is another tantalizing hint that on-board GPUs are going to be seriously stepping up to the plate to hit higher frame rates in the near future.

What appears to be an HP Spectre x360 laptop with a Lunar Lake ( Intel Core Ultra 200V ) chip obviously this is pre-release sample hardware has been flagged up on X (formerly Twitter) by leaker @miktdt. HP Spectre x360 with Lunar Lake it seemshttps://t.co/wc8LQjMAgy April 25, 2024 See more

The Lunar Lake CPU is present in a SiSoftware benchmark, where a test result is shown for the Intel Arc integrated graphics solution. According to the details provided, the spec of the GPU is pitched at 56 EUs (Execution Units) running at 1.75GHz and using 17W of power.

What result does the GPU achieve? An impressive 2,108Mpix/s which seems to back up Intels claims that Lunar Lake graphics will be twice as fast as
Meteor Lake a huge leap.

As rumored elsewhere on multiple occasions, the flagship Lunar Lake mobile
CPU is expected to offer four performance cores and four efficiency cores . Analysis: Are we set to be spellbound by Battlemage?

We should further bear in mind that this laptop is a pre-release model
running sample silicon, and indeed the GPU appears to be cut-down with 56
EUs its running 7 Xe Cores rather than the rumored 8 Xe Cores of the flagship Xe2-LPG (low-power mobile) Battlemage graphics solution.

So, the finished Lunar Lake chip will likely pull off a better score than this, particularly with higher clock speeds on top of that consideration for the cores in use here.

That said, before we get too carried away, we need to bear in mind that this leak could be wrong or somehow faked, and it is just one single benchmark
and SiSoftware is hardly the first choice for graphics tests, either.

Its still a considerable hint that Battlemage integrated graphics are going
to be pretty impressive, though lending more weight to the idea that Intel
is onto a real winner with Lunar Lake, which is set to drive thin-and-light laptops to new heights in terms of running demanding apps and contemporary games.

Theres a lot happening in this regard currently, though. On top of Lunar
Lake, AMDs Strix Point is seriously promising in terms of laptop CPUs it should arrive later this year, perhaps around the same time as Lunar Lake. (Strix Point Halo will be even beefier and follow next year, by the way).

And while this battle of Intel versus AMD is going on, theres another seriously peppy entrant into the laptop CPU arena thatll arrive before either of these next-gen products and thats Qualcomms Snapdragon X Elite ( and Plus variants ). (Image credit: Future)

Now, that is a very different kettle of silicon, because its an ARM-based
CPU, but emulation to run everyday x86 software (coded for AMD or Intel processors) has come on leaps and bounds. So much so that we recently took
the Snapdragon X Elite out for a hands-on spin and found it played Baldurs Gate 3 just fine, at 30 fps via emulation on a super-slim reference laptop.

Thats quite an achievement, and with this ARM CPU coming into view it should be in laptops on shelves in June and then AMD Strix Point and Intel Lunar Lake arriving later this year, 2024 could well see the realization of truly powerful thin-and-light laptops that can handle PC games comfortably enough thanks to the strides forward being made with integrated GPUs.

So, will discrete graphics cards for laptops soon be a thing of the past? Well, no they wont, because serious mobile gamers will always go for beefier notebooks with the biggest and best standalone GPU they can fit and there will always be that extra level of performance that some gamers will want. However, for those who desire a slim and portable laptop that can play contemporary games with no fuss their laptop options are about to open up dramatically, it seems.

And as weve recently discussed, while discrete GPUs for laptops may not be going anywhere in the near future, maybe their demise is set to happen sooner than you think. Remember sound cards? What happened to them? Exactly You
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/laptops/thin-and-light-gaming-laptops-coul d-be-revolutionized-if-this-lunar-lake-leak-is-anything-to-go-by


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