Intel's next laptop chips could bring 28-core CPUs built for discrete GPUs
Key summary
Intel's Nova Lake-HX is being readied for high-end laptops with two configurations meant to pair CPUs with discrete GPUs.
The platform uses a broader I/O subsystem with PCIe 5.0 connectivity designed to work with discrete GPUs; buyers are expected to pair the CPU with a discrete GPU over a PCIe 5.0 PEG interface.
The reported top configuration is 8P+16E+4LPE: eight Coyote Cove cores, sixteen Arctic Wolf cores, and four Arctic Wolf low-power E-cores.
The 8P+16E+4LPE layout is about 17% more cores than current 24-core HX dies; the 8P+16E cores sit within a single compute tile behind a shared L3 cache, while the four low-power E-cores are on the SoC tile and are said to succeed Darkmont islands.
Other Nova Lake-HX variants include 6P+8E+4LPE and 4P+8E+4LPE; the iGPU tile carries two Xe cores based on Xe4 "Druid," is the smallest in the Nova Lake family and has fewer GPU blocks than rival halo APUs; Nova Lake-S on desktop is rumored up to 52 cores.
