Intel's new Lunar Lake chips top Snapdragon's Arm SoCs for AI PCs

After AMD showed off their new Ryzen Zen 5 CPUs touting 50 TOPS processing power, it’s Intel’s turn to unveil their Lunar Lake mobile processors during their third Tech Tour in Taipei. Apparently, the new chips aren’t only about brute strength but also a harmonious mix between power, thermals, and bandwidth.

What is Intel’s Lunar Lake bringing to the game?

Lunar Lake brings 48 peak TOPS for its NPU alone, on par with Microsoft’s requirements for Copilot+. However, when combined with the 67 TOPS from the GPU and the rest of the components, this platform’s total processing power reaches an incredible 120 TOPS.

Intel also pays great attention to efficiency. When we see a real demonstration that compares Lunar Lake with its previous model Meteor Lake, it is clear the new chip doesn’t just work more effectively; it achieves this while using less energy as well. This is especially necessary for laptop users, who are always fearful of their battery running out at critical times.

It’s not just about improved performance, but Lunar Lake’s Skymont architecture could also change the way we think of computing tasks. With a possible 40% reduction in SoC power consumption, it hints at a substantial advancement in battery life – something all mobile users would welcome. We discussed recently why Qualcomm is pointing out this particular aspect. In fact, according to Intel’s Lunar Lake fact sheet, the new chips will bring up to 60% better battery life in real-life usages.

Finally, we must mention the gamers and creators. The emergence of Battlemage Xe2 GPU with Lunar Lake is a significant development. It will undoubtedly improve game compatibility and performance, bringing ray-traced shadows as well as XeSS enabled features to laptops. Gaming future on laptops appears better now more than ever before. Here’s a glimpse of what gamers should expect from the new Xe2:

Xe2 GPU – Brings more than 80% more gaming performance and more than five times the AI throughput over the previous generation, delivering more than 60 tera-operations per second (TOPS) New microarchitecture for the display and media engines delivers a best-in-class visual experience.

AMD demonstrated that you don’t need an Arm SoC to work with the new Copilot+ and now, Intel is bringing yet another alternative to the table. The only issue is that neither AMD’s, nor Intel’s options are yet on the market while Qualcomm laptops are prepared to get your cash.

What are your thoughts on the new Intel Lunar Lake chips? Let’s talk about that in the comments below.