Here's why Intel's Meteor Lake laptop chips are actually interesting for PC gamers

19.09.2023 - 16:33 / pcgamer.com / Meteor Lake

You're going to hear a lot about Meteor Lake in these next few days and weeks; these new chips are some of Intel's most exciting in a good while. I say that even despite their intended use as low power processors in ultra-thin laptops, not even gaming PCs. Some of the new features stuffed into these disaggregated chips could come in handy for the next-generation of gaming processor.

For starters, that very disaggregation that is central to Meteor Lake's design. The most noticeable change for Meteor Lake versus, say, a Raptor Lake chip (or really any of Intel's client processors since forever) is how its silicon is split-up into various components. 

The four (sort of five) tiles which make up every Meteor Lake processor:

Let's look at the Compute Tile in greater detail, and I'll start with the information least exciting for PC gamers. In terms of raw P-core performance, Redwood Cove doesn't offer much improvement on the instructions per clock (IPC) of existing Golden Cove cores found in today's 13th Gen processors. Intel does suggest there have been some improvements, however, including larger L2 caches, increased bandwidth per core, improved efficiency, and better utilisation via Thread Director, but I'm not expecting a major uplift in performance here.

The Compute tile has been built on the Intel 4 process node. Intel is talking up the new node's 2x high-performance library scaling, EUV lithography, more robust metal stack, improved transistor design, and many improvements designed to make sure this node goes off without a hitch. One thing that's important to note, for gamers anyways, is that the main focus for this initial Intel 4 tile has been efficiency. 

I asked Bill Grimm, Intel VP of logic technology development, whether we could see some material impact on clock speeds from the step-up to the new process node, to which he responded «we are pursuing power efficiency as a priority.» That doesn't rule out more performance-based tiles out on Intel 4, but for this mobile chip speed has certainly not been the focus.

With the P-cores looking unlikely to stun gamers with their impressive performance, it may be the new E-cores, known as Crestmont, that are of interest instead. Intel says the E-cores have seen the biggest IPC improvement, though won't say exactly how much to expect. The company does say that enhanced branch prediction, feedback from Thread Director, and AI acceleration are all in the mix for these compact cores, which should mean more workloads stick around on these low-power cores for longer.

One of the more fascinating parts of Meteor Lake is actually where Intel is placing these new E-cores—two show up within the new Low Power Island on the SoC tile. 

So, let's talk about that Low