Meteor Lake Desktop Confirmed - but for all-in-one and compact systems only

[porina]

Summary

In a video interview with PCWorld, an Intel EVP/GM stated Meteor Lake Desktop as coming in 2024.

 

Update 27 Sept. - Intel has apparently clarified it will not be coming to socketed systems, but will be using the BGA chips in compact or all-in-one desktop systems only.

 

Quotes

Quote

Intel Meteor Lake CPUs Are Coming To Desktop PCs In 2024, Confirms Intel EVP of Client Computing Group

 

The confirmation comes from an interview with PCWorld in which Intel's Executive Vice President and general manager of the Client Computing Group said that Meteor Lake CPUs are coming in 2024.

 

My thoughts

We know Raptor Lake Refresh is impending for desktop CPUs, and the question on Meteor Lake has long been if it will be a mobile only part or not. It feels like people have pretty much given up on hopes of Meteor Lake desktop with the long discussed Raptor Lake Refresh offerings. The question now is, in what form will Meteor Lake take on the desktop? Would it co-exist alongside Raptor Refresh in the same socket? Will it be a different platform? For example, if it could be a later 2024 release it may form the generation after Raptor Refresh, although with Arrow/Lunar/Panther Lake supposedly making the rest of the lineup through 2025 it is going to get very cramped. Could it go into specific niche products, like NUC offerings? Since they sold off their NUC division to Asus earlier this year it'll have to be through partners. We'll have to wait and see.

 

Meteor Lake is one of the biggest changes in Intel client CPUs. It makes their official move to tiles (chiplets) and is the first to go beyond Intel 7 process. The mobile offerings are expected to use Intel 4 for the cores, TSMC N5 for the GPU, and TSMC N6 for the SOC and IO, but they can mix and match as needed for the product space they're targeting. It will also bring NPUs to Intel mainstream, with AMD slightly ahead as it was announced on some specific mobile processors earlier this year.

 

Sources

https://wccftech.com/intel-confirms-meteor-lake-cpus-are-coming-to-desktop-pcs-in-2024/

Video should be timestamped to 6:25 specifically for the reference to Meteor Lake desktop.

[leadeater]

TechTechPotato's video on Meteor Lake is very good to get an understanding of the archecture and chips/tiles being used and what is in them. Lots of details and things many would not expect, I won't spoil it as it's best to just hear it from the source itself.

 

 

[Forbidden Wafer]

4 hours ago, porina said:

She is back!

Spoiler

 

 

[WolframaticAlpha]

Meteor lake seems to be custom built for a person like me. I love the fact that I can get a ton of threads for so cheap. The platform costs are falling rapidly and now if the power efficiency figures are real and, I will be sorely tempted to upgrade(even though I don't really need one).

 

Intel, please just give an i7 MTL APU.

 

The iGPU upgrade looks fucking sick. Right now I have a 3 year old AMD iGPU and current arc is around 30% percent faster than it I think. 2xing the perf. would kill most of the use I have for a GPU on my PC.

 

Also I'd love to have a CPU where the TDP meant what it did in te olden days. Though I'd wonder if they might port the arch to Intel 3, because they might have a bit of excess fab capacity before their foundry starts to take off

 

 

[porina]

16 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Intel, please just give an i7 MTL APU.

APU is more of an AMD term. I know what thread I'm in, but are you looking for desktop or mobile CPU? Reason for bringing this up is that we know the mobile ones are Arc based with 8 "cores", which could put it around A380 ball park. There will be differences, since Arc dGPUs are Xe-HPG on TSMC N6, and MTL GPU will be Xe-LPG on TSMC N5. With the emphasis on power consumption, even with a partial node advantage, it is likely performance will be lower.

 

The thing is, when Intel do desktop CPUs, they tend to shrink the iGPU in them vs mobile offerings. Typically 1/3 the perf of a mobile one. The expectation is that if you care about GPU perf on desktop you'd get dGPU, which is not so much an option on a laptop so they have to be more generous there.

 

 

IMO the big question remains just where will MTL desktop end up? I'm not aware of any credible rumours about it existing with Raptor Refresh. There were some photos of a CPU on a new socket which could be MTL-S, but there isn't really space for it to go alone. Intel have stated 3 more gens by the end of 2025. Given that, I'm leaning towards the scenario MTL desktop could form the low end offerings of the platform succeeding Raptor Refresh, with Arrow Lake making up the high end. 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Also I'd love to have a CPU where the TDP meant what it did in te olden days. Though I'd wonder if they might port the arch to Intel 3, because they might have a bit of excess fab capacity before their foundry starts to take off

Just install Intel XTU and set the power limits, legit safest and easiest way to do it.

[porina]

Intel clarifies:

Quote

Although Intel's Meteor Lake processors will power desktop computers next year, they will not power desktop PCs with sockets, the company clarified. Since the new CPUs are predominantly designed for laptops, they will come in ball grid array (BGA) packages and be used for compact desktops and all-in-one machines.  

"Meteor Lake is a power efficient architecture that will power innovative mobile and desktop designs, including desktop form factors such as All-in-One (AIO)," a statement by Intel published by ComputerBase reads. "We will have more product details to share in the future." 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-clarifies-meteor-lake-is-not-for-desktop-pcs-not-in-socketed-form

 

This was my least desirable solution but not unexpected. So the desktop offerings will be essentially the same as the mobile ones, maybe with higher TDP at most?

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, porina said:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-clarifies-meteor-lake-is-not-for-desktop-pcs-not-in-socketed-form

 

This was my least desirable solution but not unexpected. So the desktop offerings will be essentially the same as the mobile ones, maybe with higher TDP at most?

Ahhhh damn, so basically worthless to most people.

[Kisai]

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

Ahhhh damn, so basically worthless to most people.

"8K 10-bit AV1 hardware encoder"

I can see one use for it. Stream encoder box without a separate GPU.

 

Still, hard to justify this in a non-socketed platform, since laptops all sound like jet engines due to their crappy cooling solutions.