Intel 12th-Gen Alder Lake Release Date, Benchmarks, Specifications, and every thing we all know.
Intel confirmed at CES earlier this year that Alder Lake will launch toward the top of 2021 with an enhanced 10 nm SuperFin process.
After suffering numerous delays and setbacks to its 10 nm chip design, Intel finally launched its Ice Lake mobile processors in late 2019. On the desktop, however, 10 nm won’t be arriving until about two years after Ice Lake’s launch. Intel confirmed at CES earlier this year that Alder Lake will launch toward the top of 2021 with an enhanced 10 nm SuperFin process. Though 10 nm will soon be available on both desktop and mobile, Intel still trails behind rival AMD, which pushed ahead to 7 nm in 2019. There’s still tons about Alder Lake to be excited about, however, especially on desktop, because the platform ushers during a new architecture that focuses on efficiency and performance. And with up to 16 cores, Intel has its eyes set squarely on AMD’s 16-core mainstream Ryzen CPU. Little information has been announced about the processor platform since Intel’s CES teaser, but here’s everything we all know about Intel’s 12th-gen Alder
Lake processors thus far. Pricing and availability Intel Announces The Xeon 5100 Microprocessor For Servers Court Mast/Intel via Getty Images Intel announced that its 12th-gen Alder Lake is slated to debut in late 2021, and that we expect the mobile variant to arrive first. This suggests that desktop variants of the chip will likely arrive later within the year, which matches up with a previous rumored timeline posted on Notebook Check. We expect that Alder Lake might be announced as early as September, though newer leaks suggest that Intel’s 12th Gen platform could launch in November in time for the vacation shopping season. More recently, the November launch timeline for desktop Alder Lake-S was confirmed by Wccftech. Citing Intel partners, the publication reported that the launch timeline will mean that Intel are going to be the primary to plug with support for PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5 memory support. However, Wccftech cautiously warned that the November launch could either be moved up or pushed back counting on variety of undisclosed variables. Alder Lake for laptops, however, could launch in October. The earlier-than-anticipated launch date for the mobile platform might be aligned with Microsoft’s debut of major overhauls to its Windows OS. This suggests that the remake of Windows — it’s unclear if Microsoft will retain the Windows 10 name or if it’ll inaugurate a replacement Windows 11 — will mark its debut on Alder Lake, if these rumors are accurate, and therefore the OS could finally bring the Sun Valley design language to life. Intel only announced its 10th-gen Comet Lake-S for the desktop at the top of 2019, before it arrived within the half of 2020. That processor is predicated on Intel’s 14 nm++ process, representing the company’s fifth optimization for this architecture.
Intel is next expected to maneuver to its 11th-gen Rocket Lake on the desktop, which can again be supported Intel’s 14 nm design. A recent leak posted by SharkBay and published by Wccftech suggests that the chipset will accompany Gen 12 Xe graphics, eight cores of processing power, and a revision of the Willow Cove microarchitecture that’s been ported back to 14 nm. Despite numerous leaks in recent months about Intel’s silicon plans, the corporate didn’t offer any official insights on its future plans when pressed by EE Times for comment. At now, pricing information remains unknown for Alder Lake. However, given recent rumors that the Intel Core i5–10500 processor is predicted to retail for around $285, we expect the midrange Alder Lake generation to be similarly priced. Historically, AMD has undercut Intel in pricing, and therefore the company’s future Ryzen processors could do an equivalent. AMD did recently reveal that it’s been slowly increasing the profit margins for its chips in recent years, therefore the pricing gap between Alder Lake and AMD’s Zen-based CPUs could also be smaller than in years past. AMD’s high-end Ryzen 9 3950X desktop processor with 16 cores and 32 threads currently retails for $738. The high-end 16-core Intel Alder Lake is predicted to be priced to compete against AMD’s premium processor. Architecture design Intel’s Alder Lake are going to be supported an improved 10 nm process, which the corporate is looking 10 nm SuperFin. Intel claims that this process delivers faster transistors and improved MIM capacitors in what’s described as a “breakthrough in x86 architecture” design. And at CES, Intel confirmed earlier leaks and rumors reported by Twitter user @momo_US and published on Chinese e-commerce site PTT suggesting that it’ll move to a hybrid architecture. During its keynote presentation, Intel executives stated that the hybrid design, almost like what Arm had been doing with its silicon for smartphones and tablets, also will be coming to the desktop for the primary time. This suggests that Alder Lake will accompany efficient cores for handling background and low-level tasks and high-powered cores which will kick in when applications need more performance. For its efficiency cores, Intel will believe its Atom-based design, referred to as Gracemont, while the new Golden Cove cores will drive performance. Gracemont is predicted to bring more instructions per clock, alongside better vector performance. Intel is predicted to mix eight Gracemont cores with eight Golden Cove cores on its premium Alder Lake processor design for a complete of 16 cores on desktop, though other configurations also will be available. This makes it hard to match Intel’s hybrid 16-core CPU against AMD’s homogenous architecture with an equivalent number of cores, though the change to a hybrid design should help Intel stay competitive against a replacement crop of ARM-based processors, like Apple’s M1 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon PC processors. Based on a leaked Intel slide, Alder Lake’s architectural change is predicted to deliver up to twenty single-thread performance improvement, because of the Golden Cove cores and an enhanced 10 nm SuperFin design, and up to 2x multi thread performance gain with Gracemont cores. For its heterogeneous architecture, early leaks show that Intel can combine anywhere between one and eight Golden Cove cores with four to eight Gracemont cores on mobile. This means that Alder Lake can scale well, and power consumption starts at just 5 watts on mobile. This could help Intel deliver longer battery life on notebooks, a crucial feature needed to compete against Apple’s recent M1 silicon on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Alder Lake on laptops is predicted to succeed Tiger Lake in Intel’s lineup, and therefore the mobile variant is predicted to be labeled as Alder Lake-P. These chips are destined for various notebooks and tablets.
On desktop, an early leak revealed that Intel can also have a six-core version of Alder Lake. With this variant, Intel will have all six cores supported the larger Golden Cove cores, eliminating the smaller Gracemont cores entirely. The six “big-core” variant of Alder Lake-S is predicted to possess a TDP (thermal design power) of 80 watts, while the 16-core version can go up to 125 watts, though Videocardz suggested that Intel could scale power up to 150 watts for this design. In a separate desktop Alder Lake-S leak, the chip was shown during a benchmark with eight cores and 16 threads. This suggests that this configuration won’t accompany the Gracemont cores, a move likely made because Intel’s high-efficiency cores lack Hyper-threading support, consistent with Tom’s Hardware. The processor has been shown with a clock speed of 3GHz in one benchmark, though an earlier benchmark showed it with a 4GHz frequency. Alder Lake will believe Intel’s integrated GT1 graphics. Intel has been heavily investing in its integrated graphics, and therefore the Gen 11 graphics will bring casual gaming performance to its Ice Lake laptops. We expect similar performance jumps on the desktop side. As Moore’s Law is slowing on the processor side, Intel is looking toward improved graphics capabilities to assist with data analytics and AI applications. The corporate recently demoed how creative workflows, like video and photo editing, might be sped up with more capable graphics. Intel is additionally performing on its own discrete Xe GPUs supported that very same architecture. Other changes to Alder Lake include support for PCIe Gen 5 and PCIe Gen 4 also as DDR5 and DDR4 memory. In terms of memory, though Alder Lake will support both generations of DDR system memory, it’ll be up to the board manufacturer to make a decision which standard to support. Users won’t be ready to mix DDR4 and DDR5 modules on an equivalent board. Thunderbolt 4 and Wi-Fi 6E Gig+ also will be supported on Alder Lake. Performance Source: Videocardz Compared to current Rocket Lake processors, early rumors suggest that we will see a 20% IPC uplift with Alder Lake, because of the new Golden Cove cores. And as long as Rocket Lake already delivered a 19% IPC boost over the prior-generation Comet Lake design, this could help Intel deliver consistent gains to those looking to upgrade. Intel has talked up the 10 nm process, its heterogeneous architecture, and support for faster memory which will help drive these gains, but there’s still tons of unknowns about Alder Lake at this point. The corporate has not released any details about clock speeds, and that we don’t skills clock speeds on the various sorts of cores will affect the CPU’s overall performance across variety of tasks, including productivity, video performance, and gaming. Initially, there have been speculations that the 12th Gen Alder Lake platform might not be as tuned for gaming, given the chipset’s use of mixed core architectures, compared to 11th Gen Rocket Lake. However, a newer Dota 2 benchmark taken from an early engineering sample of Alder Lake proves that this isn’t the case, and despite early speculations, the platform is well adapted for gaming. Alder Lake scored a powerful peak of 549 frames per second on the sport when paired with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card, with a mean frame rate of 120 fps. An early benchmark taken of a 16-core Alder Lake-S engineering sample suggests that Intel’s hybrid architecture may be a capable performer. Consistent with Videocardz, the 12th-gen CPU with 16 cores and 24 threads outperformed Intel’s Core i9–9900K on Geekbench 4.4. Because the chipset was an early sample, the benchmarking utility wasn’t ready to accurately measure the clock speed. Here, the bottom speed was listed at 2.19GHz, and it’s likely that the 27.2 GHz boost speed was a mistake. The publication speculates that the particular boost speed would be between 2.7 to 3.4GHz. A similarly configured 12th-gen CPU was also recently spotted within the Ashes Escalation Benchmark database, consistent with Hardware Times, and therefore the clock speed was listed at 2.2GHz. While the heterogeneous architecture will deliver power savings benefits to laptops, power efficiency also will be an indicator of Alder Lake’s desktop design. Intel is reported to be pushing its new more power-efficient ATX12VO standard to launch alongside Alder Lake later this year. The standard, which needs a replacement motherboard with a 10-pin power connector and compatible power supply, is claimed to spice up power efficiency of power supply units on desktops, consistent with VideoCardz. The 10-pin connector would replace the present 24-pin connector on today’s motherboards, and makers are hesitant to proceed with the change because it would require a DC-to-DC converter on the board itself. Intel’s push could help spur adoption and provides Alder Lake the high-performance-per-watt label to compete against AMD’s upcoming Ryzen processors that are said to be supported that company’s Zen 4 architecture. Power consumption are often reduced by the maximum amount as 50% when desktops are running at or near idle, consistent with the publication, which reported that Intel is in talks to figure with its partners to start work on shifting to the new ATX12VO. The ATX12VO will have little effect on power consumption when PCs are running under heavier loads, however. And since manufacturers need four to 5 months of time interval, Alder Lake could launch as early as September, consistent with PC Gamer.
According to VideoCardz sources, entry-level motherboards and pre-built systems will likely leverage ATX12VO, while high-end gaming rigs and motherboards designed for workstation use could retain the prevailing 24-pin power connector. A stopgap to 7 nm 11th-gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named “Rocket Lake-S”) deliver increased performance and speeds. Intel launched the processors on March 16, 2021. (Credit: Intel Corporation) It’s interesting that Intel is bringing this hybrid architecture to the desktop. On mobile, the corporate debuted it’s big. LITTLE approach on Lakefield, which features four Atom Tremont cores and a Sunny Cove core. It’s speculated that Intel’s motive for bringing this hybrid design to the desktop, where power efficiency isn’t such an enormous constraint, is to assist bridge the gap until it’s able to launch a 7 nm desktop CPU. The additional core could also help boost multithreaded performance. On Lakefield, high-performance tasks are performed on Sunny Cove, while background threads are relegated to the Atom Tremont cores. In multithreaded applications, all cores are fired up for a lift in performance. It’s unclear what proportion gain in performance might be obtained with a desktop design. The hybrid big. LITTLE design could even be a last-minute decision, consistent with a report from Tom’s Hardware. It’s been reported that the corporate initially didn’t want to plan to all 16 cores on the 10 nm design, and having eight big cores and eight little cores could are a design compromise while still allowing Intel to match the 16 cores on AMD’s mainstream Ryzen processor. If the timeline for a 2021–2022 launch pans out, AMD’s 7 nm process will likely have matured, and a 5 nm Zen 4 process could provide it an IPC advantage over Alder Lake. AMD announced it’ll believe its 3D Infinity Fabric 3 packaging and chiplets expertise for its next-generation Zen 3 architecture, while Intel is leaning on its Foveros acquisition to package its high-performance cores with its low-powered Atom cores for efficiency. Like AMD, Intel has also confirmed it’ll move toward 5 nm within the future for better performance and power efficiency. New socket Biostar Z170GT7 Bill Roberson/Digital Trends With Alder Lake, Intel are going to be moving on to a replacement socket design. Alder Lake-S is predicted to inaugurate the new LGA 1700 socket, which can support DDR5 and DDR4 memory alongside PCIe Gen 5. Variety of Asus boards supporting the LGA 1700 socket and Intel Z690 chipset were shown in HWiNFO, consistent with Wccftech. In terms of RAM, you won’t be ready to mix DDR4 and DDR5 modules together on an equivalent board. With LGA 1700, Wccftech reported that Intel are going to be switching to an oblong socket size, so upgrades to Alder Lake-S will need a replacement board. Additionally, new coolers are going to be required for socket compatibility, and LGA 1700 may mark the start of Intel’s transition to a platform-agnostic design, though this hasn’t been confirmed. If accurate, Intel are going to be following the lead of smaller rival AMD, and therefore the design might be welcome news for future upgrades as multiple chip generations could reuse an equivalent board and socket. It’s also unclear if Intel will have the chance to deal with the newest security vulnerabilities by the time Alder Lake launches. A security researcher discovered a vulnerability in Intel’s Converged Security and Management Engine that potentially affects all Intel chips released within the last five years. Malicious actors could exploit the vulnerability to decrypt confidential files if they gain access to a lost or stolen laptop, security researcher Mark Ermolov said.
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