Intel uses the same approach in Adler Lake as in Lakefield – with large and small cores
The well-known resource Notebookcheck has published details about Intel Adler Lake processors, obtained, as noted, exclusively from “OEM sources”. These data characterize in some detail the promising Adler Lake CPUs, which seem to be released next year: given that their technical process is the same as, for example, those of Tiger Lake-H, which are released in early 2021 (or at the end of this year) – with With a 10nm CPU and 14nm PCH, production shouldn’t be too difficult, but only Intel knows the exact timing of new processors.
DDR5, PCIe 5, and unequal cores. Intel Adler Lake Processors Details
Adler Lake will use the processor layout known from CPU Lakefield: with large and small cores – like the big.LITTLE principle in Arm SoCs. So, small cores of Adler Lake will be based on the Gracemont microarchitecture (it will replace Tremont in Lakefield), and the basis for large cores will be Golden Cove, which will replace Willow Cove in Tiger Lake. While the source talks about two series of Adler Lake CPUs: Adler Lake-S with TDP up to 125 W and the number of processing cores up to 16 (8 Gracemont and 8 Golden Cove) and Adler Lake-P with TDP up to 65 W and the number of processing cores up to 14 ( 8 Gracemont and 6 Golden Cove). Interestingly, multithreading will be available only for Golden Cove cores, that is, we can talk about 24 and 20 threads, respectively. Adler Lake-S, of course,
Given the positioning, it is quite logical that the more productive Adler Lake-S will have weaker GPUs – Intel Xe with 32 execution units. Adler Lake-P will have a GPU with 96 execution units. Accordingly, the former supports up to 128 GB of RAM (DDR4-3200 MHz or DDR5-4400 MHz), the latter supports up to 64 GB of memory of the same standards. Well, a common feature of the CPU line is support for the proprietary AI engine Intel Gaussian and Neural Accelerator 3.0 (GNA 3.0), Wi-Fi 6E 802.11axR2, and various security technologies: Total Memory Encryption (TME), Return-oriented programming (ROP) attack prevention, Hypervisor-manager Linear Address Translation (HLAT) and Multi-key TME (MK-TME).
Adler Lake-P is credited with supporting up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports and one Maple Ridge controller, while Adler Lake-S will support two Maple Ridge controllers.
