Intel announced the new 12th Gen processors at its Architecture Day a couple of days back, and while we don’t have an exact launch date of when the next-gen processors are expected to launch, what we do know is that the Alder Lake chips will be in the markets by the end of the year and the first wave will have performance desktop CPUs aimed at gamers and enthusiasts. But what’s interesting in this leak that’s doing the rounds on the internet is that the launch of the Alder Lake laptop chips is not too far off either.
A new listing on the UserBenchmark database reveals an unreleased Asus VivoBook laptop with a processor mysteriously addressed as an “Intel 0000” chip. We believe this belongs to the Alder Lake family and features 8 cores and 12 threads. The listing also reveals 1GHz base clock speed and 2.9GHz turbo clock speed.
Alder Lake marks a major shift in the way Intel designs its processors. The American chipmaker has so far been using homogeneous cores in the CPU architecture, where each core is as powerful as the other. On the other hand, smartphones have made heterogeneous computing more common, particularly as a means to save power and deliver more performance in a small form factor. The 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake chips will adopt the latter’s approach and use big.LITTLE architecture for the first time in high-end desktop and laptop CPUs.
The Alder Lake chips, as revealed by Intel during the Architecture Day 2021 keynote, will feature a mix of high-performance Golden Cove cores and power-efficient Gracemont cores, which Intel claims, delivers a significant boost in IPC at higher power efficiency.
The UserBenchmark listing, based on this information, means that the power-efficient cores will be clocked at a low 1GHz, while the performance cores will go up to 2.9GHz. The listing further reveals that this particular Alder Lake CPU will feature four performance-centric Golden Cove cores with Hyper-Threading and four Gracemont efficiency cores sans Hyper-Threading. As a result, the upcoming SKU will have a 4 core (Big) +4 Thread+ 4 core (Small) + 0 Thread = 12 Threads configuration.
Intel has stated that the architecture will top out at 16 cores and 24 threads, but that’s likely for the desktop SKUs. The benchmark listing doesn’t reveal much about the performance of the 12th Gen Alder Lake chip found in the unnamed VivoBook laptop. While Intel does promise a massive boost in performance this time, we will have to wait and see how it fares against its chief rival, AMD. The listing simply mentions it is “performing as expected”.
What’s important about this leak is that an Alder Lake processor meant for laptops getting leaked when the desktop CPUs are coming out earlier. Intel usually reserves its CES keynote to reveal its new mobile CPUs, but as the leak reveals, work is already underway with OEM partners, and CES 2021 is expected to be flooded with laptops powered by 12th Gen Alder Lake chips.
