Intel’s upcoming Meteor Lake processors will be the company’s first chips manufactured using a new Intel 4 process, which the company says will bring improvements in performance and efficiency. They’ll also be the company’s first chips to use tiled architecture that separates key components like the CPU, GPU, and other parts into a series of “chiplets” that are put together in a single package.
And now it looks like that package could even involve onboard memory.
Intel recently released a promotional video that showed a Meteor Lake chip with 16GB of on-package Samsung LPDDR5X-7500 MHz memory.
The company has since edited the video to remove the section that shows this on-package memory, which suggests that the announcement was either premature or never supposed to be public. But Tom’s Hardware spotted the video before it was modified, and notes that the memory would carry peak bandwidth of 120 GB/s, while potentially offering speedier performance and reduced size when compared with a motherboard that keeps the processor and memory separate.
Of course, one disadvantage to integrating memory on the same package as the processor is that it basically makes it impossible for users to upgrade memory in a laptop or mini PC that ships with on-package RAM. But that’s already the case for many thin and light laptops and compact desktops that have memory soldered to the mainboard.
It could also be problematic for PC makers, who would have fewer options available when choosing memory and storage configurations if they’re packaged together on a single chip.
Apple already offers chips with on-package memory, but Apple is also a vertically integrated company that makes the chips used in its own computers. Intel is in a different position, as a company that sells its chips to third-party PC makers (which is even more true now that the company is shutting down its NUC PC business.)
via Tom’s Hardware and VideoCardz
love the speed and the idea but as a technician who has to support many machines there is nothing worse then to tell a customer they have a dead laptop and the whole motherboard has to be replaced for a memory related issue
Hmm, I had major issues trying to post a comment earlier. Let’s see if it works now….
So as I said, it’s the release after Meteor Lake that has me excited. I was reading there is supposed to be a high-end chip from Intel that has 16 P cores + 24 E Cores, so 40 cores alltogether (which I’m assuming, will mean 56 threads all together), and this will be freaking awesome for A.I. inference.
Especially if that chips supports DDR6 RAM!! While I have been very excitedly waiting for a decent Risc-V laptop to be released, this chip I’m very excited about!!
I forgot to say, it’s a laptop chip!! I can’t remember the name, but 40 cores is freaking awesome for a laptop!!!!
From a performance standpoint, this could be a great idea. Apple’s unified memory design has been pretty successful.
However, it has also destroyed the used Macbook market, because the vast majority of people are buying the 8gb models, and that’s almost all you see on the used market now.
Laptops that lack upgradability have poor resale value, and it just requires people to buy more new laptops.
Performance is cool, but anti-consumer design is not.
Good grief. Intel offers THIRTEEN VERSIONS of the Rapter Lake Core i5 mobile chips alone. Of those, these THREE are the ones likely to get the integrated RAM:
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=232127,232143,232153
Why? Because they have only 2 performance cores AND they also have Iris Xe graphics rather than UHD graphics. Meaning that they would be perfect for – as an example – a Chromebook Plus. Or an Aya Neo Air handheld gaming console (as Intel is going to use the former Arc A370M discrete GPU as the integrated GPU for 14th and 15th gen). Or as a Minisforum TH50 type device that will be legitimately called a $500 gaming PC. Right now with Minisforum, Beelink etc. you can get the barebones (no RAM or SSD) Core i5 for maybe $425 or one with 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD for $550. With this, they should be able to ditch the barebones model because the RAM will be included and just offer SSD options.
Minisforum will still be able to offer the Core i5s with 4 and 6 performance cores to the people who want to customize. But what Intel is likely going to do with the 2 performance core versions is push them for low TDP appliance solutions like prosumer Chromebooks and handheld gaming consoles.You will get more performance because of the tripled memory bandwidth as well as better power efficiency. (Plus more space for a bigger battery). Downside? There isn’t one. Especially when you consider that nearly all the devices with the sorts of Core i5 chips above have the RAM soldered into the motherboard anyway. The Chromebooks certainly do, as do most of the low end mini-PCs.
Oh boy am I expecting a big stupid pointless flamewar (somewhere on the internet) that won’t actually change anything between people who want the ability to swap out RAM at the expense of performance and battery life, and those who think this is futuristic, cooler, and that keeping up requires such measures, and those who think this won’t help intel become socially desirable again.
Yeah. Most of them are going to ignore that notebooks like the Dell XPS 13, HP Pavilion, every single Chromebook in history but 2 (the Framework plus one other) has soldered on RAM anyway. And this will merely replace those.