38 TOPS at 15w in a tablet*
This is up to 48 TOPS at up to 37w
Something tells me the full 35w M4 will be somewhere above 48TOPS..
This is still a huge leap forward for Intel, especially integrating memory on die. I doubt it topples M4.
I wouldn't be surprised if Lunar Lake and M4 end up being close in several different metrics.
One big one I see coming: Dynamic Voiceover.
Imagine instead of a generic filler name, each voice actor’s generative model could speak your character’s nam3 in video game scenes. Now imagine generating entirely novel conversations with highly nuanced NPCs.
> up to 120 total platform TOPS (tera operations per second) across central processing unit (CPU), graphic processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU) to deliver the most compatible and performant AI experiences across models and engines.
Notice they say "most compatible and performant AI across models and engines", this means you don't really get to add all the TOPS up and run them as a unified workload. That sum of 120 is marketing speak, without doubt the CPU will hit ~30w alone just running the 8 cores at full speed, and leave little power for its GPU and NPU. Even with their 50% (claimed) efficiency gain.
They already do this today with their existing laptop chips, so I highly doubt they have changed.
Instead, you get different power targets, TOPS and efficiency depending on the workload. It's the same with Apple, we don't actually know how much wattage the NPU used during their claimed 38 TOPS.
Package power is about all we got until the chip comes out. It's not like Apple and Intel are putting 2w GPUs and 2w NPUs on a 37w package (at least not anymore). They likely utilize 30-50% of the available power.
This is how I read it anyway, I'd love someone else to weigh in and tell me if its different from previous press releases.
Lunar Lake is optimized for a steady-state package power of 17 W and it is likely that most devices with it will use this value as the default power limit.
The 17 W power limit has been essential in determining the characteristics of Lunar Lake.
A CPU designed for 37 W would have looked very different, by being similar to AMD Strix Point (which is optimized for 28 W or more), i.e. by having more CPU cores, a beefier GPU and more PCIe lanes and other peripheral interfaces.
NPU is a "background AI" device. It performs better than CPU and worse than GPU for low end tasks, without having to wake up messy GPU. It's not supposed to be fast at all.
Comparing SoCs by advertized TOPS figures is like comparing cars with reversing speeds. That sometimes matter, rarely the most relevant parameter.
My car goes faster in reverse, something that I only need for movies like "the in-laws." ( Peter Falk and Alan Arkin)