Intel’s 16th Gen Lunar Lake processors are quite a ways from an official release. However, a CPU from the same family has been spotted on the SiSoft Sandra database. We’re looking at an octa-core part with 4 P and 4 E cores. The P-cores are paired with 2.5MB of L2 cache each (25% more than 14th Gen P-cores), while the E-core cluster shares a chunk of 4MB. The L3 cache comes in at 16MB and is shared amongst all the P and E cores. The P-cores have a peak clock of 3.91GHz, while the E-cores top out at 2.61GHz.
The 16th Gen Lunar Lake CPUs will be fabbed on the 20A process node, Intel’s 2nm-class node set to land next year. Initially, Lunar Lake was supposed to be an 18A (1.8nm) product, but due to 20A production being ahead of schedule, plans changed.
According to Intel’s roadmap, its 16th Gen Lunar Lake chips are designed from the ground up for mobility devices with always-on capability. That means an immense focus on power efficiency, with the node shrink pointing to a tick rather than a tock. Much like the 14th Gen Meteor Lake processors, we’re looking at a node shrink with minimal changes to the core architecture.
Considering the above, we’re looking at the same core architectures as Arrow Lake: Lion Cove for the P and Skymont for the E-cores. This Lunar Lake sample draws an average TDP of 17W, indicating an ultrabook SoC meant for always-on devices. Don’t expect the 16th Gen processors to arrive anytime before late 2025.
Via: WCCFTech.