After the presentation of the Alder Lake H series during the last CES in Las Vegas, where Intel wanted to show all the power of the top of the range for gaming systems and Core i9-12900HK portable workstations, today the company unveiled the new Alder Lake P series and U series, designed to offer even more performance to “thin and light” systems.
The new ranges offer a total of 20 new processors, which will be the basis of over 250 products that will be released during the year. The first notebooks with Alder Lake P and Alder Lake U processors will arrive as early as next March. The two series are dedicated to two slightly different segments: Alder Lake U offers low-power solutions with a Maximum PBP of 15Wwhile Alder Lake P is a sort of “middle ground” between the U series and the H series: with a Maximum PBP of 28W and more cores than the U series, it manages to deliver superior performance, while allowing manufacturers to maintain a lightweight and slim design while offering long battery life.
Chris Walker, corporate vice president and general manager, Intel’s Mobility Client Platforms, said “Following the launch of the fastest gaming processor, we are now expanding the 12th Generation Intel Core processor family to deliver a big leap in performance in thin-and-light laptops. From light and thin devices to products with elegant design and performance that will satisfy the enthusiast, we offer consumers and businesses leading performance and advanced technologies ”.
The new models of the P and U series offer technical characteristics very similar to those of the other models seen so far in the Alder Lake range: they are based on the Intel manufacturing process 7 at 10nm, equipped with a mix of high-performance P-Core and high-efficiency E-Core (for a total of 14 cores on the flagship model), equipped with integrated Iris Xe graphics with up to 96 EU and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memories (including LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 variants). Then there is no lack of support a Thunderbolt 4 and WiFi 6two key features for those who use laptops of this type.
The top of the range of the two families are the Core i7-1280P and the Core i7-1265U. The first offers 14 cores and 20 threads (6 P-Core, 8 E-Core), 24MB L3 cache, boost up to 4.8GHz on P-Cores, PBP of 28W and MTP (Max Turbo Power) of 64W. The second instead makes available 10 cores and 12 threads (2 P-Core, 8 E-Core), 12MB of L3 cache, maximum frequency also in this case of 4.8GHz on P-Cores, PBP of 15W and MTP of 55W. Some U-series models, such as the Core i7-1260Uthey have a PBP of only 9 watts and are designed for folding display systems.
Going into more detail of the performance, according to Intel the new top of the range Core i7-1280P offers up to 70% more multi-threaded performance compared to the “old” Core i7-1195G7. In the 3D rendering tests with Blender, the CPU is about 50% faster than the former top of the range, and is also faster than the Ryzen 7 5800U, current top of the range with low power consumption from AMD. In contrast, Apple’s M1 Pro chip remains faster in 3D rendering.
The situation changes instead if we look web browsing and photo editing, two situations in which the new Core i7-1280P shines particularly: in tests it is respectively 17% and 30% faster than the Core i7-1195G7, also used here as a reference. The new Alder Lake P series is also faster than the Ryzen 7 5800U and the two Apple M1 and M1 Pro chips in the two benchmarks. Core i7-1265U it performs very well and is second only to the Core i7-1280P.
Intel’s new solutions also shine in CrossMark, a program that performs various tests to measure CPU performance in various domains. The Core i7-1280P is 20% faster overall than the Core i7-1195G7 and is closely followed by the Core i7-1265U. If we look at the subtests, the only one in which we find a different scenario is Creativity, where the Apple M1 Pro chip is positioned between the two Alder Lakes.
Computing performance aside, even the Iris Xe graphics of the new processors looks promising: looking at the data shared by Intel, it is possible to well exceed 30 FPS in any game at Full HD resolution and in medium detail, while eSports games such as CS: GO, DOTA or League of Legends can be played above 60 FPS even at the highest graphics quality.
During the conference Intel wanted to share some news also regarding Intel Evo, whose specifications have reached the third edition. Laptops seeking certification will now be subjected to more intense loads, with tests that simulate real-world product usage conditions even better to ensure the best performance. In addition to the already known features such as instant start-up, lightning-fast response times, real battery life and fast charging, the laptops will now also be tested for ensure a high-level experience in video conferencing, increasingly widespread and used in all work environments. Thanks to the work with the partners, over 100 new Intel Evo certified devices will arrive on the market during the year and among these there will be, for the first time, solutions with foldable displays and systems based on Alder Lake H series processors.
Another novelty is the program Engineered for Intel Evo, which ensures the quality of the accessories to be combined with certified notebooks. There are Thunderbolt monitors, docks, storage solutions and bluetooth headphones, which will be added to the range of existing accessories of brands such as Anker, Kensington, Dell, HP, Belkin, Sabrent and many others.
