Hey everyone.
I am Mark Hachman with PCWorld, and we are here with Michelle Johnston
Holthouse, the chief, the general manager of Intel's client
computing Division here at Intel Innovation.
Hello. Hi, Thanks for having me.
And we are here to talk about Meteor Lake, which Intel just introduced.
This is Intel's fourth generation, 14th generation core processor.
It's specifically a mobile parts.
Would you mind just hitting the high points
of what we need to know about Meteor Lake and how it differs from its predecessors?
Yes, so we're branding Intel Core Ultra
and it is a very balanced and holistic CPU
is the way that I like to think about it.
So think about Raptor Lake like performance, discrete level GPUs.
So we brought our Intel Arc graphics down to two X, the graphics performance
about half the battery, so performance per watt, about half in comparison
to what you would have seen on Raptor Lake and our first ever integrated and CPU.
So air capabilities within the silicon stack.
So one of the things
that's important to me was the fact that you guys are really emphasizing
low power on this.
So from a performance standpoint,
I think talked a little bit before, you're talking about the performance
of the prior generation 13 Gen core, but with this half of power.
That's right. Okay, great.
And we're doing that in a couple of different ways.
I mean, you have the intel
for process technology where you're disaggregating the different tiles,
but you're also doing
some interesting things with low power cores and thread directed to.
And I wanted to ask you a little bit about that.
So the can you explain what a low power core is
and how it differs from, say, a peak or a regular core?
Yeah, the way I look at it is we have this low power at Sea Island
and the way you should think about that is these are low power
sources that run in the background and can continually run things
at a much lower power state.
And so this is the architecture that we've implemented with major like it
on, which really allows us to achieve that about 50% metric that we talked about.
And we really did that because what we heard from customers
is we needed better performance for what they did
not want to get up that performance threshold,
but they wanted better battery life.
And we know that that is something
that both commercial and consumers are looking for.
And so we were able to implement it in this new way,
which I'm very, very excited about.
And you mentioned Intel threat director Mark Wright.
This is important because it actually tells the workloads where they should go.
So if it's a burst capability, obviously you'd want it on the core performance CPU.
But if it's something that's just running in the background,
then you're going to want it on that low power associate.
And one of the things they showed off actually running on those low power cores
was, you know, video decoding.
I mean, you're actually playing back video,
which is a really interesting thing for a laptop
like on a plane, for example, because
you're not touching any of the core except for that little bitty core
that's going to allow your battery life to go a lot longer.
Okay, great.
The other thing, though, I wanted to ask you about was just
the sort of
the the policy change you guys are making with thread director.
So in previous courtships, if you had a new task, a new thread,
you would push it to the core first
and that would be just, you know, again sort of emphasizing performance.
But here you're starting off at the very lowest core, if at all possible.
Why is that?
Because to get a balanced platform and to deliver that better battery
performance, you've got to start an effort and then bounce up.
If you start up core, you're automatically consuming that energy
and then moving down.
And so part of it is just a fundamental shift of saying,
hey, we need more and more to be able to run on those cores
and we need to use pause when it's most important, right?
And so it's just it's about that balance platform.
But we just continue to hear from customers of
I want a balanced platform, I want better battery life.
However, I don't want to sacrifice performance.
So by being able to put it on the EA or knowing that you need to move it
to the peak for that user can still have a great performance experience.
It just doesn't use
the same, doesn't expend the same battery that it would have before.
But this is a this is a policy change though, right?
So you could. Yeah.
I mean, if you wanted to have a gaming optimized processor,
could you go ahead and change that and say, okay, we're going to push test
to the core as first.
Well, you could write that into Intel thread directly if we choose to.
If you choose. Yes, absolutely. Okay.
I mean, Intel third director is
I leave it living being is the way I think about it.
And so that is going to evolve to deliver the best performance
for the machine, for the silicon that we have at the time that we have.
And so we'll listen to our customers if there are certain
workloads or experiences that need to land on the core first.
And that's something we would certainly consider.
Yeah, and you're right. I mean, you have to serve both worlds.
You have to serve some of the business people
who like to have that all day battery life.
I mean, you have to have like the gamers
who just want performance stuff that wasn't right.
And that's kind of where I wanted to ask your next question, too, is
you guys are stepping through five process nodes in four years.
I mean, you guys made a big step. You know, big deal about that.
This is Intel for Intel three in the right way.
There's a lot of you know,
first of all, you know, historically
there I guess there's a school of thought that.
So you don't want to launch a new chip on a new process because it introduces
too many variables or too many possibilities for things to go wrong.
Is this mindset just out of date at this point in time,
or is there something else going on?
Well, the way I look at it, especially with Disaggregate architecture,
is I want to deliver the right ship on the right note.
So the way I think about it is what know does that chip me?
So sometimes actually,
like if you look at our communication, they actually need older nodes.
If you think about the core, right, what's the most performant now?
And so I think with media, like we've proven that you can deliver
new core and a new node
on time and have it be performant and have some happy customers.
So we're going to continue to look at it that way.
So from here forward with disaggregated architecture, I'm literally with my team
looking at every core, every chiplet and where's the best place to land it
and on which process. Let's talk about that just a second.
One more question for you in that regard.
So if you are stepping through five process nodes in four years,
does that mean we're going to see a lot of text,
we're going to see a lot of emphasis on low power, you know, going through there,
not so many talks.
I mean, is that is that right?
No, There's talks to come along with it as well.
I mean, I kind of use
you know, if I look at the
roadmap that we have coming, we will have both text and talks in that roadmap.
And again, I think it's the node for the architecture, right?
So when you think about media like being on Intel for
if that's the right match era, like we'll be next generation node.
So we're just continually looking at saying, Hey, what is the right node
for the right process?
And we have five nodes in four years, which is definitely a sprint.
But we're we're really choosing which one makes the most sense for our customers.
At the end of the day, we want to deliver what the consumer needs.
Now, Meteor Lake, for instance, so far is just a mobile chip
and you guys haven't said anything about desktop.
Let me ask you, I mean, is there going to be a media
like desktop or you desktop will come in 2020 for desktop,
which you are confirming media like desktop? Yes. Okay, great. So
that was going to be my next question was whether or not
you guys were sort of returning to an era where
there was going to be a processor family for mobile
and a separate process for desktop, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.
That is not the case.
I want one processor family top to bottom for both segments.
Why doesn't everybody. Right, exactly. It's a lot easier said than done.
Quick question.
So let's talk a little bit about the tiles you have for tiles.
Now you have CPU graphics IO and SLC
and the SSD, of course, is when those those little power cores live on.
My question is, okay, so you can bring this thing to market.
It comes to market on in December, December, December 14th.
Great.
How is that going to be?
How are you going to tell users what they're getting?
I mean, what we've kind of we've had model numbers in the past.
Are we going to see a revamp revamp of that
with different to indicate which tiles people really get the technology?
No, I think when we think about media like we're going to talk about experience,
that's the way that I've been talking with our customers
about who bring these products to market is we need to talk about persona.
So, for example, you're a commercial customer and I
and low power may apply to you in a different way.
And so we need to market and communicate it that way.
So, for example, how does CrowdStrike work better on a machine like this, right?
What security capabilities, you know, might you have what I.T infrastructure
or local applications could be run more securely in a commercial like PC.
Hey, if you're a consumer, let's just say you're a photographer.
Hey, how is Adobe going to run differently?
So I look at this as more of
we've got to start talking about the usage models
that people are going to get out of this because I think particularly
with the neural processing unit or the NPL,
there's so many things that we don't even know today
and I don't want to define and say this is what it is.
Sure, I want to release these billions of tops
and unleash this amazing developer ecosystem
to write, innovate and create in ways that they never thought possible.
And they're going to teach us actually what the silicon can do.
Okay.
One more question in this regard.
So for tiles, for different road maps,
are we going to see these for different, you know, iterations?
We're going to have things overlap with one another or are we going to see
like a new process or I mean, for new tiles or five new tiles or anything?
Oh, no. So we'll take up.
I guess the easiest way to answer that is there will be architecture
pieces of each node that move forward to the next now.
Right.
But let's just continue to talk about the new
all the work that's done in the new on meter like ports forward to the APU
that you'll see with lunar like even though it's larger and more performant
but the work from a software and hardware integration perspective ports forward so
I think it's more important to think about the way the technology moves
from the node versus how the chiplet moves from the node.
Okay, Now we're talking about how are you selling that to consumers?
I mean, it's been
it's kind of a challenge.
I mean, you know, you're talking
about experience and stuff or what sort of experiences
are you going to need to tell consumers that improve with an AI?
Yeah, it's a very, very good question.
And I think to be honest with you,
that script is kind of being written in real time.
And because the world is inventing what's going to show up on AI, but
we know things like collaboration, we know personal assistant, we know security,
we know all of those are key elements that consumers are interested in.
If you're a creator or a gamer, we already know that, A.I.
adds a lot of functionality and capabilities.
So, you know, you're in Lightroom and you're editing a picture.
I mean, if you can speed that up, that's fantastic.
If you're a creator and you could be creating graphics in new ways,
that also helps.
But I also think
we have to spend some time listening to those consumers and saying,
what are the issues and the problems and the challenges
that I have in my daily life and how can we apply AI to that?
That's why I keep saying I don't want to define what success looks like.
I want to unleash the marketplace to help us define
how was I going to be successful, what problems is it going to solve
and why are people so excited about it? And it's not just the CPU.
I mean, you can go, Oh, it could be the new the GPU or the ship.
I think that's what's so amazing about A.I.
and that's also where I think Intel really shines when you think about the way
that Intel Third Thread director works, Think about open Vino in the same way
where you can start to direct workloads to the right performance.
Silicon architecture, right?
And you can take advantage of a very balanced platform
because we have all three and they're all performance.
And that really allows the software developer
to really think about how to best optimize their software for our silicon works.
That's great.
So we also have a more technical detailed examination of what
your like is both on the video side of thing,
our YouTube channel as well as on PC World site itself.
So Michelle, thank you for being with us.
Thank you for having me. Thank you for watching.
Go ahead and keep it tuned to PC World's YouTube channel for more.