The newest pictures of Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake-MX CPU powering thin & light platforms have been leaked by Igor's Lab.
Intel Lunar Lake-MX CPUs To Be A One-Stop Shop For Thin & Light Platforms With The Chip & Memory All Onboard A Single Package
Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs are going to be the direct follow-up to Meteor Lake CPUs and will launch alongside the Arrow Lake lineup. While Arrow Lake serves the more high-end and mainstream PC space, Lunar Lake will be designed for low-power platforms and take a more defined approach in terms of design and packaging.
Following are some of the features of Lunar Lake CPUs:
- Designed For Thin & Light Notebooks
- Lion Cove P-Cores & Skymont E-Cores
- Battlemage "Xe2-LPG" GPU Architecture
- 4+4 Core Configurations (MX-Series)
- Up To 64 Execution Units
- On-Package LPDDR5x Memory
- Up To 3x Faster NPU Performance Versus Meteor Lake
- Late 2024 Launch, 2025 Volume
Based on the information that we have right now, Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs will be branded under the "MX" and "M" family. These chips will utilize a mix of Intel's 20A process technologies and TSMC's N3B (3nm) nodes to power various IPs. There are reports that the compute tile will be the one utilizing the 3nm process and we can also expect the same to be the case for the GPU tile that leaves the primary I/O/SOC tile to leverage from Intel's process technologies though the company hasn't clarified what tile uses which node, officially.
The compute tile will feature up to 8 cores based on 4 P-Core and 4 E-Core configurations for the top SKUs. The P-Cores will be based on the Lion Cove architecture, the same will be used by Arrow Lake, while the E-Cores will be based on the Skymont architecture. Arrow Lake will house a mix of Skymont and Crestmont E-Cores but the AI capabilities will see a drastic improvement with Lunar Lake chips thanks to an updated NPU which offers up to 3x the performance of Meteor Lake chips.
The graphics tile for Lunar Lake CPUs will be based on the next-gen Battlemage "Xe2-LPG" uarch which is a follow-up to the Alchemist "Xe-LPG" and also better than the Alchemist+ "Xe-LPG Plus" architecture coming to Arrow Lake mobility chips. This tile will comprise up to 8 Xe2 cores for a total of 64 Execution Units.
We have already seen package shots of the Lunar Lake chips before but the new one gives us the exact package size. The main SOC which includes three tiles is sitting next to two Micron LPDDR5x DRAM modules. The whole package comes in the 2833BGA form factor and measures 27.5x27mm. Igor's Lab also has a SOC I/O slide that shows us the various features that the Lunar Lake CPUs will be capable of such as:
- eDP1.5
- HDMI 2.1, DP2.1 (via USB Type-C)
- Integrated Wi-Fi 7 + BT6
- GbE LAN
- SPI/THC - Touch
- TBT4/USB4 (via USB Type-C)
- PCIe Gen5
- PCIe Gen4
- USB 2/3
- UFS 3.1
Yesterday, we saw one of the first laptops equipped with an 8-core Lunar Lake CPU leak out which was Samsung's next-gen Galaxy Book5 Pro design. Once again, the Intel Lunar Lake CPUs are expected to launch later this year in limited quantities with a more reasonable supply expected in early 2025 following next year's CES. Expect more info on the lineup in the coming months.
Intel Mobility CPU Lineup:
| CPU Family | Panther Lake | Lunar Lake | Arrow Lake | Meteor Lake | Raptor Lake | Alder Lake |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Process Node (CPU Tile) | Intel 18A | TSMC N3B | TSMC N3B | Intel 4 | Intel 7 | Intel 7 |
| Process Node (GPU Tile) | TSMC N3E / Intel 3 | TSMC N3B | TSMC 5nm | TSMC 5nm | Intel 7 | Intel 7 |
| CPU Architecture | Hybrid | Hybrid (Dual-Core) | Hybrid (Triple-Core) | Hybrid (Triple-Core) | Hybrid (Dual-Core) | Hybrid (Dual-Core) |
| P-Core Architecture | Cougar Cove | Lion Cove | Lion Cove | Redwood Cove | Raptor Cove | Golden Cove |
| E-Core Architecture | Darkmont | N/A | Skymont | Crestmont | Gracemont | Gracemont |
| LP E-Core Architecture (SOC) | Darkmont | Skymont | Crestmont | Crestmont | N/A | N/A |
| Top Configuration (Compute Tile) | 4+8 (H-Series) | 4+4 (MX Series) | 6+8 (H-Series) 2+8 (U-Series) | 6+8 (H-Series) 2+8 (U-Series) | 6+8 (H-Series) 8+16 (HX-Series) | 6+8 (H-Series) 8+8 (HX-Series) |
| Max Cores / Threads | 16/16 | 8/8 | 14/14 | 14/20 | 14/20 | 14/20 |
| AI NPU | NPU5 (50 TOPS) | NPU4 (48 TOPS) | NPU3.5 (13 TOPS) | NPU3 (11 TOPS) | NPU2 (7 TOPS) | NPU2 (7 TOPS) |
| Planned Lineup | Core Ultra 300 | Core Ultra 200V | Core Ultra 200 | Core Ultra 100 | 14th/13th Gen | 12th Gen |
| GPU Architecture | Xe3-LPG (Battlemage) | Xe2-LPG (Battlemage) | Xe-LPG+ (Alchemist) | Xe-LPG (Alchemist) | Iris Xe (Gen 12) | Iris Xe (Gen 12) |
| Xe Cores (Max) | 12 Xe3 Cores | 8 Xe2 Cores | 8 Xe Cores | 8 Xe Cores | 96 EUs (768 Cores) | 96 EUs (768 Cores) |
| Memory Support | LPDDR5X-9600 | LPDDR5X-8533 | DDR5-5600 LPDDR5-7500 LPDDR5X-8533 | DDR5-5600 LPDDR5-7400 LPDDR5X - 7400+ | DDR5-5200 LPDDR5-5200 LPDDR5-6400 | DDR5-4800 LPDDR5-5200 LPDDR5X-4267 |
| Memory Capacity (Max) | 128 GB | 32 GB | 128 GB | 96 GB | 64 GB | 64 GB |
| Thunderbolt Support | TB5 | TB5 | TB5 | TB4 | TB4 | TB4 |
| WiFi Capability | WiFi 7 | WiFi 7 | WiFi 7 | WiFi 6E | WiFi 6E | WiFi 6E |
| TDP | 17-45W | 17-30W | TBD | 7W-45W | 15-55W | 15-55W |
| Launch | 2H 2025 | 2H 2024 | 2H 2024 | 2H 2023 | 1H 2023 | 1H 2022 |
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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