Intelhas just announced its latest line of high-enddesktop PCprocessors, which it calls the Core Ultra 200S series. These new chips utilize the traditional x86 architecture, but with tons of tweaks and under-the-hood platform improvements.
There’s also a pretty big new addition to boot: a dedicatedneural processing unit (NPU)for performing hardware-acceleratedAI tasks. As the tech industry continues to pivot towards all things AI, it’s now time for NPUs to enter the Wintel desktop arena.
“With cooler, quieter performance, Core Ultra 200S series processors are engineered to unlock new levels of intelligent performance – from creation to gaming – and bring AI capabilities to Intel-based desktop and entry workstation platforms for the first time,” says Intel.
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What’s new with the Core Ultra 200S series?
This time around, Intel is lazer-focused on power efficiency
Intel’s new Core Ultra 200S series, which is also referred to by the code name Arrow Lake, is focused primarily on energy efficiency improvements. This mirrors the company’s recent efforts in the consumer laptop space, with its recentCore Ultra (Series 2) chipsalso making gains in the efficiency department. The other most notable addition relates to AI – more on this shortly.
Starting on the efficiency front, these new chips are a genuine step-up compared with Intel’s existing Core 14th generation processors. Arrow Lake has the capability to cut power consumption in half when it comes to productivity-based tasks, using 58% lower package power in lightly-threaded work versus the older Raptor Lake-R chip. These advances are the result of the company’s “latest core IP and efficiency innovations.”
Starting on the efficiency front, these new chips are a genuine step-up.
In terms of compute power, the story is a little bit less exciting – these chips offer a minor boost in Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) performance, but it doesn’t appear to be anything groundbreaking.
It’s hard to truly understand a new chipset’s processing capabilities without testing it out in the real world, but Intel does provide some figures. Multithread performance is said to be at least 10% higher, while graphics performance is quoted as being at least 2x as fast as the previous generation.
Really, it’s the addition of an all-new processing unit – a dedicated AI processor known as an NPU – that adds to the platform’s available hardware grunt. Rather than having to rely on the GPU to perform on-device AI tasks, which is quite energy-intensive, the specialized NPU runs in the background and focuses entirely on AI. Intel quotes up to 13 trillion operations per second (TOPS) for the integrated NPU 3 found within these new chips.
These Arrow Lake processors are loaded with all the latest and greatest standards.
In terms of other integrated technologies, these Arrow Lake processors are loaded with all the latest and greatest standards you’d expect to find in a high-end chip.Wi-Fi 7,Bluetooth 5.4,Thunderbolt 5, and PCIe Gen5 are all supported at the platform level. This is also the first Intel desktop processor to feature Thunderbolt 4 built-in from the get-go.
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How do these new Intel Core Ultra 200S series chips stack up?
Intel demonstrates its ability to dial in on efficiency with these new desktop-grade processors
Intel’s chip-making efforts have been ramping up in recent years, in response to fiercer than usual competition from Apple, Qualcomm, and others. The recently launched Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) processors provide genuine competition withSnapdragon X-based andApple Silicon-based offerings.
Intel’s latest foray can be described as a return to its roots, with a focus on desktop and enthusiast-level PCs. The company’s x86-based architecture still bests competing ARM solutions when it comes to brute force processing, even if that gap has begun closing in recent years.
The one big disappointment here is Intel’s decision not to prioritize an NPU capable of at least 40 TOPS, the minimum requirement needed for Microsoft’sCopilot+ PCcertification. The choice isn’t surprising, with the desktop PC market not yet leveraging AI to a massive extent, but it still would’ve been nice for future-proofing purposes.
To be fair to Intel, the company does say that the combination of its efficient architecture and its software stack level the playing field when compared against products that offer more TOPS on paper.
The big advancements in energy efficiency are highly welcome.
The big advancements in energy efficiency are highly welcome, though they aren’t as essential here as they are on battery-powered laptop or tablet PCs. Nevertheless, there’s little reason to complain about decreased heat generation, quieter fans, lower power draws, and, ultimately, a less expensive energy bill at the end of the month.
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