The expanded 12th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor family adds 22 new SKUs, while the new H series mobile CPUs are aimed at content creators as well as gamers and enthusiasts, and the new 12th Gen Intel Core U- and P-series mobile processors are aimed at the more conventional thin and light market.
Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group, onstage Tuesday.
Today, in a presentation from the CES show which was pivoted from an on-prem to a virtual event courtesy of Omicron, Intel announced a major expansion to their recently announced 12th Gen Intel Core desktop family, formerly codenamed Alder Lake, with 22 new CPUs, as well as the 12th Gen versions of their Intel Core mobile processors, with 28 new models across the H series, aimed at gamers and content creators, and at the U and P series, which are targeted at the thin and light mobile market. Intel also announced that their Mobileye subsidiary is announcing its new EyeQ Ultra system-on-chip for autonomous vehicles, as well as expanded relationships with major automakers, including Ford, Volkswagen Group and Geely’s ZEEKR brand.
“We are making ubiquitous computing a reality,” declared Gregory Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group, who kicked off the presentation, identifying it as one of Intel’s four ‘superpowers’ along with cloud-to-edge infrastructure, pervasive connectivity and AI. “We are making announcements in three specific areas: advances in PC experiences, graphics momentum and around Mobileye.”
Bryant highlighted how the new Intel Core 12th Gen announcements, based on the Intel 7 process, launched in late 2021, significantly extend the new family, which initially was limited to a fairly small set of desktop SKUs.
“In the last quarter, we launched the Intel Core 12th Gen, and we are on pace for the fastest desktop ramp-up of all time,” he said. “Now we are expanding the 12th Gen further, including a KS-series desktop processor that has a 5.5 GHz single core turbo right out of the box. It will ship by the end of this quarter.” The KS chips will also be able to extend beyond 5 GHz for multiple cores as well.
As part of this fuller rollout of these new chips into the less sexy commodity models that still make up a huge portion of Intel’s sales, Intel announced their full roster of i9, i7, i5, i3 Pentium and Celeron models, all the way down to the 35-watt, dual core Celeron G6900T.
On the mobile front, Intel is bringing back its Hybrid CPU design for mobile machines with a new architecture, in its high-end H series, which are 45 watts and above. Also announced, but not launched – not today anyway – were the P series, which Intel classifies as for the Performance Thin and Light market, and which run from 22 to 28 watts, as well as the ‘Modern Thin and Light’ U series. The U series models run between 9 and 25 watts.
“We now have the world’s best mobile gaming platform period,” Bryant said, nothing that the H series can do performance tasks like file rendering while doing background tasks at the same time.
“The 20 plus new models powered by the H series processors is just the beginning,” he stressed. “In total, we will deliver more than 100 mobile SKUs this year. They are not just for enthusiasts and gaming. Our new P series has up to double the performance of our 11th Gen.”
With the launch of 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processors, Intel has also updated their Intel Evo platform for laptops and other mobile form factors, verified to the third-edition specification and key experience indicators of Intel’s Project Athena innovation program. More than 100 co-engineered designs with 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processors will soon start passing Intel Evo verification, and most will be available for purchase in the first half of 2022.
“This third generation of Intel Evo also adds new technologies, like an integrated Intel Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+), Intel® Connectivity Performance Suite, and AI-based background noise cancellation,” Bryant added.
To extend the experience through accessories, Intel also announced the Engineered for Intel Evo and Intel Evo vPro program to build end-to-end experiences backed by Intel co-engineering and testing for Thunderbolt™ and Bluetooth accessories.
Intel also made a momentum announcement at the event around their Intel Arc Graphics Set, targeted mainly at the high-end gamer market, which they said will transform the Discrete Graphics industry.
“We are now shipping these discrete CPUs to our leading OEMs,” said Lisa Pearce, vice president in the Visual Compute Group at Intel. “For many discrete GPU users, its all about gaming, which makes our partners critical.” Intel announces more than 50 new mobile and desktop designs with OEM partners contanining these Intel Arc graphics, including Acer, ASUS, Clevo, Dell, Gigabyte, Haier, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, MSI and NEC.
Professor Amnon Shashua, CEO of Intel’s Mobileye CEO subsidiary, then concluded the presentation with the announcement of a new system-on-chip [SoC] that is purpose-built for autonomous vehicles. Built on Mobileye’s EyeQ technology, EyeQ Ultra does the work of 10 EyeQ5 SoCs in a single package and was designed to deliver the optimum power performance of a fully self-driving vehicle. Shashua was joined by the CEOs of Ford and the Volkswagen Group, who announced expansions of their relationships with Mobileye.
Bryant concluded the show by announcing that Intel will host their second Intel ON event on May 10 and 11.
