Upcoming Core Ultra 200 lineup will have limited AI performance on desktops
Arrow Lake-S NPU to be capable of only 13 TOPS, which is still better than Ryzen 9000 which doesn’t have NPU at all.
Like it or not, Neural Processing Units will now be part of every consumer CPU moving forward, unless the vendor does not want their platform to compete in the AI race or simply isn’t concerned about Microsoft’s Copilot+PC certification. It appears that the upcoming Arrow Lake-S, which is a codename for Intel’s desktop series, will not meet the requirement of 40 TOPS from the NPU.
Jaykihn has provided new information on Arrow Lake-S NPU performance. There was some confusion around earlier statements that Arrow Lake-S might not actually have an NPU, but that was just a misunderstanding. The architecture does indeed have an NPU, but its performance will leave a lot to be desired.
According to the leaker’s tweet, the NPU will only be able to sustain 13 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second), which we assume is in INT8 format. That would put Arrow Lake-S between AMD Phoenix and Hawk Point equipped with XDNA processors, and far behind Strix Point and Lunar Lake, which reach 48-50 TOPS.
Collection of various small improvements/changes shipping with Arrow Lake -S.
All specifications are “up to”, except for TOPS, which may exceed the listed number on the retail product. pic.twitter.com/EyAxyFVZMf
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) July 9, 2024
Of course, NPU performance is just one contributor to the overall AI inference processing power of the processor. Some companies include CPU and GPU AI acceleration speeds, which in the case of Arrow Lake will be 9 TOPS for the GPU and 15 TOPS for the CPU. Unlike APUs, which have more capable integrated graphics, Arrow Lake’s built-in Xe-LPG will not be as fast, making it even slower than the CPU core TOPS.
Latest Architectures NPU TOPS (INT8)
- AMD Granite Ridge : 0 TOPS
- Intel Raptor Lake-S/HX : 0 TOPS
- AMD Phoenix XDNA1 : 10 TOPS
- Intel Arrow Lake-S/HX NPU : 13 TOPS ⬅️
- AMD Hawk Point XDNA1 : 16 TOPS
- Qualcomm Snapdragon X HEXAGON : 45 TOPS
- Intel Lunar Lake-MX NPU4 : 48 TOPS
- AMD Strix Point XDNA2 : 50 TOPS
Overall Arrow Lake-S platform would provide 37 TOPS, which is already 3x more than Raptor Lake-S. Also worth noting that the AMD’upcoming Ryzen 9000 series will not have a built-in XDNA processor. The CPU will only deliver CPU and GPU TOPS.
The leaker also revealed that the supposed Arrow Lake Refresh, possibly coming to desktops and laptops, would focus mainly on the NPU upgrade. Arrow Lake-S is most likely using an older NPU architecture, while Lunar Lake uses the latest NPU4. This newer unit has increased compute performance for matrix computations and higher clocks, resulting in quadrupled performance.
Intel has not yet shared additional details on Arrow Lake. However, the company typically provides updates on its desktop platforms during its Innovation event, which is scheduled for September.
Source: Jaykihn