What you need to know
- Intel confirmed that Meteor Lake desktop chips will arrive in 2024.
- The chipmaker recently detailed its upcoming Meteor Lake mobile processors.
- Intel called Meteor Lake its "biggest architectural shift in 40 years."
Intel's Meteor Lake processors are the largest architectural shift by the company in 40 years, and we now know that the shift is not exclusive to laptops. Intel took the wraps off its Meteor Lake CPUs last week, but that announcement focused on mobile processors. Following the mobile chip news, an Intel executive confirmed that Meteor Lake will come to desktops next year.
"Desktop will come in 2024," said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Client Computing Group at Intel, when asked about Meteor Lake chips. Holthaus added, "I want one processor family top to bottom for both segments, doesn't everybody?"
Those statements came during an interview with PCWorld's Mark Hachman that Tom's Hardware reported on.
While Hachman confirmed that Meteor Lake processors will be available on desktops, little is known about the chips. Tom's Hardware speculated that the Meteor Lake-S CPUs will have up to six high-performance cores.
The video above should jump right to the 6:25 mark when Holthaus discusses Meteor Lake desktop CPUs. However, that entire segment is 30 seconds, so we'll have to wait for more details.
There are still several critical questions about Meteor Lake desktop processors, such as which type of motherboard will be required to use the chips.
The advent of Meteor Lake represents a major generational shift for Intel. Following the announcement of the new chips, our Editor-in-Chief, Daniel Rubino, said, "The future of Intel-based laptops wasn't exactly dim, but now it seems brighter than ever."
While the development of Meteor Lake began before Apple's M-series came to be, the new chips will likely be compared to Apple's offering. That's because Intel Meteor Lake processors are expected to compete with Apple's regarding efficiency.
All Meteor Lake chips will feature a neural processing unit, which shifts the load required for AI tasks to a dedicated chip. That means both the performance and efficiency cores of a Meteor Lake CPU can focus on other tasks. NPUs also use less power, which helps with efficiency.
We'll have to wait for details to confirm similar movement on the desktop. Intel called Meteor Lake its "biggest architectural shift in 40 years," so it's safe to assume the company is excited about its Meteor Lake desktop CPUs and its upcoming mobile processors.
But before we see Meteor Lake for desktops, expect a refresh of Raptor Lake to deliver even more performance, according to recent leaks, before the end of 2023.
