Watch for New Laptops Powered by New Core Ultra 200V Series Mobile CPUs

Intel formally launched its Lunar Lake chipset architecture at Computex in June, and now, at the IFA show in Germany, has made the traditional followup launch of the actual processors: the Core Ultra 200V series. The most notable upgrades to the chip are a better-performing second-generation Arc integrated GPU, an AI-accelerating NPU with much higher throughput -- with up to 48 NPU and 67 GPU  TOPS -- and lower power consumption and optimizations which Intel claims can yield much better battery life (up to 20 hours).

The 9 Core Ultra chips announced today -- the 9, 7 and 5 series -- have a lot of commonalities. For one, stop thinking in terms of cores, because all 9 have the same core counts: 4 P-Cores and 4 E-Cores. They differ only by processing speed.

The updated NPU comes in two configurations: 5 or 6 cores. Since performance is determined by the CPU clock speeds, the theoretical maximum throughput of 48 TOPS only applies to the top-of-the-line Core Ultra 9 288V. Throughput drops as you go further down the line, and by the time you get to the Core Ultra 5, it's as low as 40 TOPS. The same performance qualifiers apply to other chips, where the performance is at least limited by clock speed. 

That's true for the new GPUs as well. They're split into two configurations, the 140-volt with 8 cores and 130-volt with 7 cores, and decreasing clock speed limits its maximum AI acceleration throughput, even within those classes. The 140-volt ranges from 67 TOPS in the Ultra 9 and 64-66 TOPS for the Ultra 7, while the 130-volt is a flat maximum of 53 TOPS since that GPU has the same maximum frequency throughout the Ultra 5 line.

I'm not crazy about the nomenclature -- the "V" suffix makes me automatically think "volts" -- but at least the numbering tells you, in addition to class (designated by the middle value), the maximum amount of memory it supports. That's 32GB for part numbers ending in 8 and 16GB for parts ending in 6. They can all burst boost power consumption to 37-watt, but only the Core Ultra 9 288V fits into the power envelope of a standard thin-and-light laptop. The rest have the same power class as ultrathin-and-lights, so look for laptops with the Core Ultra 7 268V for the best balance of performance and power. We don't know prices yet, so it's not clear where value will fit into that equation yet.

Like other Core Ultra chips, there's support for Wi-Fi 7, faster memory (8,533 MT/s) and Thunderbolt 4. That doesn't mean all the laptops will incorporate them.

Intel's usual partners will have laptops incorporating the new processors, at launch, we'll hear about Acer's Swift series, Asus' Zenbook Vivobook and Expertbook models as well as compact NUC desktops; HP's OmniBook Ultra Flip; and LG's Gram line. They're all probably variations on designs based around the recent Qualcomm X series or AMD Ryzen AI series processors. We'll know more as the show progresses and individual manufacturers make their own announcements.