A brand new 12th generation Intel Alder Lake mobility CPU has appeared in the Geekbench database. The mobility CPU has more cores and wires than any existing notebook chip and also has some significant clock speeds, although this is a very early engineering sample.
Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake-P mobility CPU spotted with 14 cores and 20 wires, up to 4.70 GHz boost clocks
The Intel Alder Lake CPU noted within the standard database is part of the Alder Lake P series. The 12th generation family will be split between the Alder Lake-P notebook and the desktop, Alder Lake-S setups, both of which feature a hybrid core architecture. The CPUs will contain both x86 ‘Cove’ and ‘Atom’ kernels, with the larger kernel working in SMT configuration, and the smaller kernel working without SMT.
The engineering sample contains 14 cores and 20 wires. This configuration is only possible with a 6 + 8 (large / small) design. Since only the larger Golden Cove nuclei contain SMT, we get 6 nuclei and 12 wires, while the remaining nuclear / wire count is covered by the 8 smaller Atom nuclei. If we want to use an 8 + 6 configuration, the core count will also be 14, but the thread count will eventually be 22.
Intel Alder Lake 12th generation large. SMALL CPU configurations:
| SVE | Big Cores ‘Cove’ architecture | Small core ‘Atom’ architecture | GPU level |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 + 8 + 1 | 8 | 8 | GT1 |
| 8 + 6 + 1 | 8 | 6 | GT1 |
| 8 + 4 + 1 | 8 | 4 | GT1 |
| 8 + 2 + 1 | 8 | 2 | GT1 |
| 8 + 0 + 1 | 8 | 0 | GT1 |
| 6 + 8 + 2 | 6 | 8 | GT2 |
| 6 + 8 + 1 | 6 | 8 | GT1 |
| 6 + 6 + 2 | 6 | 6 | GT2 |
| 6 + 6 + 1 | 6 | 6 | GT1 |
| 6 + 4 + 2 | 6 | 4 | GT2 |
| 6 + 4 + 1 | 6 | 4 | GT1 |
| 6 + 2 + 1 | 6 | 2 | GT1 |
| 6 + 0 + 1 | 6 | 0 | GT1 |
| 4 + 8 + 2 | 4 | 8 | GT2 |
| 4 + 0 + 1 | 4 | 0 | GT1 |
| 2 + 8 + 2 | 2 | 8 | GT2 |
| 2 + 4 + 2 | 2 | 4 | GT2 |
| 2 + 0 + 2 | 2 | 0 | GT2 |
| 2 + 0 + 1 | 2 | 0 | GT1 |
Other specifications include 24 MB L3 case and 4 MB L2 case. The CPU is seen at speeds up to 4.70 GHz, but it is still an early ES chip with a base clock of only 800 MHz and average clocks of around 4.1-4.2 GHz. In addition, the CPU contains the GT1 graphics chip containing 96 output units or 768 core packets tuned to 1150 MHz. The OpenCL score for both Intel Alder Lake processors averages about 13,440 points which is not that impressive, but it is also expected due to the fact that the graphics driver has not yet been fully optimized.
Here’s everything we know about the next generation Alder Lake CPU family
The Alder Lake CPUs will not only be the first desktop processor family to feature a 10nm process node, but also a new design methodology. From what we know so far, Intel plans to include a mix of CPU cores based on different IPs. The Alder Lake processors have standard performance ‘Cove’ cores and smaller but efficient ‘Atom’ cores. This large.Small design methodology has been incorporated on smartphones for some time, but Alder Lake will be the first time we see it in the high performance segment.
Here are some updates you can expect from Intel’s 2021 architecture suite:
Intel Golden Cove architecture:
- Improve performance with single thread (IPC)
- Improve the performance of artificial intelligence (AI)
- Improve network performance / 5G
- Improved security features
Intel Gracemont (Atom) Architecture:
- Improve performance with single thread (IPC)
- Improve the frequency (clock speeds)
- Improve the performance of the vector
In addition to the chips, the LGA 1700 platform is said to feature the latest and brand new I / O technology, such as support for DDR5 memory, PCIe 5.0 and new Thunderbolt / WiFi features. Although the disk design methodology is nothing new, as we’ve seen several SOCs have similar core hierarchies, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see a similar outing in a high-performance computer CPU series when Alder Lake launches in Q3 2021.
Comparison between Intel Desktop CPU Generations:
| Intel CPU family | Processing process | Processor core (maximum) | TDPs | Platform Chipset | Platform | Memory support | PCIe Support | Start |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sandy Bridge (2nd generation) | 32 nm | 4/8 | 35-95W | 6-series | LGA 1155 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 2.0 | 2011 |
| Ivy Bridge (3rd generation) | 22 nm | 4/8 | 35-77W | 7-series | LGA 1155 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2012 |
| Haswell (4th generation) | 22 nm | 4/8 | 35-84W | 8-series | LGA 1150 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2013-2014 |
| Broadwell (5th generation) | 14nm | 4/8 | 65-65W | 9-series | LGA 1150 | DDR3 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2015 |
| Skylake (6th generation) | 14nm | 4/8 | 35-91W | 100 Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2015 |
| Kaby Lake (7th Gen) | 14nm | 4/8 | 35-91W | 200 Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2017 |
| Coffee Lake (8th generation) | 14nm | 6/12 | 35-95W | 300 Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2017 |
| Coffee Lake (9th generation) | 14nm | 8/16 | 35-95W | 300 Series | LGA 1151 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2018 |
| Comet Lake (10th generation) | 14nm | 10/20 | 35-125W | 400 Series | LGA 1200 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 3.0 | 2020 |
| Rocket Lake (11th generation) | 14nm | 8/16 | TBA | 500 Series | LGA 1200 | DDR4 | PCIe Gen 4.0 | 2021 |
| Alder Lake (12th generation) | 10 nm | 16/24? | TBA | 600 series? | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2021 |
| Meteor Lake (13th generation) | 7nm? | TBA | TBA | 700 series? | LGA 1700 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2022? |
| Lunar Lake (14th generation) | TBA | TBA | TBA | 800 series? | TBA | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2023? |
News sources: Videocardz, Benchleaks