Intel Alder Lake Hybrid CPUs Could Shake Up the Market
The 12th-gen Alder Lake processors will be Intel's first hybrid chips. They will have two types of cores with different specializations. An interesting function connected with it is Thread Director.
- Intel revealed some information about the 12th-gen CPUs, including the Thread Director function.
Intel's Architecture Day 2021 event reveals a little more detail about the upcoming Alder Lake processors. They will be hybrids, meaning they will use two types of cores - "E" and "P" (Efficient and Performance), but we already knew that. What's new is the Thread Director feature. It is built directly into the chip and manages the proper allocation of tasks by the operating system between cores.
Core strengths of Alder Lake processors. Source: Intel
Golden Cove high-performance "P" cores will be used primarily by the most important, "mainstream" processes. In turn, "E", or Gracemont, due to their energy efficiency (low voltages) are to be used by tasks performed in the background. In this way, Alder Lake is expected to provide performance that is scalable depending on the needs of both mobile and desktop devices. Intel promises an increase in efficiency in the new generation by up to 19% over Rocket Lake (11th-gen).
Diagrams of different variants of 12th-gen chips. Source: Intel
Thread Director will work with Windows 11. It is described in more detail in an excerpt from Intel's event transcript, at the36:58 minute mark.
Alder Lake CPUs will be based on Intel 7 architecture (formerly Enhanced SuperFin), they will support DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0. Also the socket standard will be new - Intel LGA 1700. The launch of the new chips is expected later this year.
