The Meteor Lake processors didn't get an official release, but here is how they look in reality, and they also work on select motherboards.
Intel Core Ultra 9 185 Early Samples Pictured; Features No Hyperthreading
Before Meteor Lake made it to the mobile platform, several previous reports indicated that Intel would release the desktop variants. Even though the processors didn't officially make it to the market, Intel did manufacture many such units as we recently saw in a leak.
One of the early engineering samples reveals "Q46W" as the sample name and was apparently in the second stage of sampling as revealed by the ES2 designation. This processor is supposedly the Core Ultra 9 185, which is a variant of the Core Ultra 9 185H we have on the mobile platform. The specs reveal that the Core Ultra 9 185 is a 14-core processor, featuring six performance and eight efficient cores.
However, there is no hyperthreading. This resembles some of the mid-range Core Ultra 200S processors, made for the LGA 1851 socket. Not surprisingly, the Meteor Lake Core Ultra 9 185 is also compatible with the LGA 1851 socket and has been reported to have worked on such a motherboard. Still, it's reported that it won't work on most 800-series motherboards we have today due to the absence of official support from Intel.
The sample did work properly, as can be seen from the provided screenshots, and was also tested in CPU-Z. The processor brings a TDP range of 65W-135W and a base/boost clock of 2.8/4.5 GHz. The mobile variant can be boosted to 5.1 GHz and also has two additional low-power efficient cores with hyperthreading. As for the performance, the CPU-Z single and multithreaded tests revealed 732.3 and 5750.2 points respectively. For comparison, the mobile variant scores 734 and 8162 points in single and multithreaded tests respectively, and the latter is higher due to hyperthreading.
Nonetheless, Intel reportedly changed its initial plans to release the Meteor Lake for the desktop as of early 2023. Meteor Lake was the first ever multi-tiled design from the company, having four different tiles (Compute Tile, Graphics Tile, SoC Tile, and I/O Tile), and introduced the first significant performance leap in the graphics department, thanks to the Xe-LPG architecture.
Unlike Lunar Lake, Meteor Lake was originally planned for high-performance computing on desktops and laptops and still offers more cores and threads on the mobile platform even though Lunar Lake was a niche product that excelled in high graphical performance while increasing the battery life tremendously.
News Source: IT Home
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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