Intel at CES offered a preview of its next major chip release, the hybrid Alder Lake chipsets, which like its Lakefield predecessor will use an approach similar to Apple Silicon’s utilization of Arm’s “BIG.little” technology, using high-performance and high-efficiency cores in a single package to maximize both power and efficiency.
Chaim Gartenberg for The Verge:
Where the Lakefield chips were largely focused on mobile devices, Intel says that Alder Lake will help serve as the foundation for future desktop and mobile processors instead, with the first products using this “most power-scalable system-on-chip” set to arrive in the second half of the year.
MacDailyNews Take: Or, given Intel’s track record, sometime in late 2024.
The 12th Gen Alder Lake chips will feature a “new, enhanced version” of the 10nm SuperFin designs already found in Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake chips, with a combination of new high-power cores it’s calling Golden Lake and new Gracemont cores for efficiency. (Tiger Lake’s CPU cores were known as Willow Cove.)
MacDailyNews Take: Intel’s really good at evocative, often lake-centric product naming, but not much else.
The timing is particularly apt: the Alder Lake chips represent Intel’s closest product to Arm-based chips that are built like the game-changing M1 processors that Apple introduced in November.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck with that, outclassed anachronism.