Forget Snapdragon X or AMD Ryzen AI 300 CPUs for laptops – Intel’s big Lunar Lake reveal on September 3 promises ‘unmatched AI computing power’

Core Ultra 200V family to be unleashed just before IFA 2024 show

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Intelis set to officially launch itsLunar Lake processorsfor laptops on September 3, just ahead of the IFA 2024 show in Berlin.

The Core Ultra 200V series of mobile CPUs – that’ll run alongside Core Ultra 200, orArrow Lake, on the desktop(and also notebooks at the higher-end) – is a highly anticipated range set to seriously pep upthin-and-light laptops.

Intel informs us: “During the livestreamed event, [Intel execs] will reveal details on the new processors’ breakthrough x86 power efficiency, exceptional core performance, massive leaps in graphics performance and the unmatched AI computing power that will drive this and future generations of Intel products.”

AI is one of the most important advances here, as you may be aware, with Lunar Lake driving forward in a major way with a much more powerful NPU than current Meteor Lake laptop chips.

Analysis: TOPS trumps

Lunar Lake is a key range for Intel, as with an NPU that exceeds 40 TOPs – which is ameasurement of AI processing speed– it qualifies to be the engine of a Copilot+ PC – bringing Intel up to speed in that respect with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips, and alsoAMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series (which have literally just been launched).

However, Lunar Lake will only be announced and detailed in the September 3 livestream (note that a Q3 launch was previously promised by Intel). Laptops going on sale with the chips inside them likely won’t happen for a while longer – and volume production of notebooks probably won’t kick off until early 2025. (That said, the same is true of the just-debuted Ryzen AI 300 chips, which won’t arrive in volume for some time yet – but this should happen by the close of 2024).

So, Intel will be last to the Copilot+ PC party, but Team Blue is certainly talking a big game with the impact that Lunar Lake is set to make. Previously, Intel has asserted that Core Ultra 200V processors will not only have a powerful NPU, but also a beefy GPU that’ll contribute 60 TOPS, so thechip will be capable of over 100 TOPS in total, meaning AI workloads should really shift.

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A high TOPS rating means that heavyweight AI workloads will be completed faster, and this is crucial for some of the more in-depth features inWindows 11– notably thecontroversial (and temporarily shelved) Recall ability– to ensure they work responsively and don’t bog down your computing experience.

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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