'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
Your next laptop may be powered by this Intel AI chip, and the benefits are mind-blowing
Ahead of IFA 2024 in Berlin, Intel unveiled its next-gen processor: the Core Ultra 200V, formerly known as Lunar Lake. This series aims to directly challenge Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and AMD's Strix Point lines by being the new premiere choice for laptops.
For the Core Ultra 200V series, Intel is focusing on two major areas -- speed and longevity. Each of the nine models consists of four performance cores and four efficiency cores with varying amounts of RAM. For example, the Intel Core Ultra 5 processor 226V has 8GB of memory while the high-end 288V has 12GB. According to the company, these chipsets will be able to "intelligently" tweak their performance. This will be done through several features.
Also: OpenAI, Intel, and Qualcomm talk AI compute at legendary Hot Chips conference
Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 can accelerate hardware performance "for peak loads." Dynamic Tuning optimizes energy consumption to match a laptop's power policies. Adaptive Boost Technology allows users to enhance the processor so it can "run faster than its rated frequency."
Additionally, both the integrated graphics card and neural processing unit are seeing their own upgrades. The Arc houses Intel's Xe Super Sampling and Xe Matric eXtensions engines providing "AI upscaling and ray tracing… beyond what people expect from" a lightweight laptop. The Lunar Lake NPU can now peak at 48 TOPS (trillions of operations per second).
As for the battery, Intel made unique design choices. They've implemented a feature called OS containment: enabling the Core Ultra 200V chipset to keep a laptop's workload "on efficiency cores (E-cores) as much as possible." When a workload is particularly demanding, it'll shift things over to the performance cores until they're no longer needed. Then the P-cores shut down to conserve energy.
It's unknown exactly what the battery life will be like on a Lunar Lake laptop. It'll depend from device to device, however, online reports give us an idea of what to expect.
Also: The 23+ best Labor Day laptop deals still live
After conducting the UL Procyon Office Productivity benchmark test, Intel claims the Core Ultra 9 288V lasted about 14 hours on a single charge. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and AMD HX 370 chipsets run for about 9.5 and 10.1 hours, respectively, on the same test.
The company goes on to state the 200V series boasts superior gaming performance by being almost 70 percent better than Qualcomm's hardware. As impressive as this may sound, keep in mind that the Lunar Lake is meant for everyday or work laptops. It'll most likely be unable to outperform the best gaming laptops.
The first wave of laptops housing Intel's new chip is launching on September 24. We don't know what'll be coming out at the end of the month, however, other reports claim Dell has already announced a new version of their XPS 13 laptop sporting a Lunar Lake processor.
We were unable to locate the refreshed computer. None of the XPS 13 models on Dell's website possess a Core Ultra 200V series processor. It's either a Meteor Lake or a Snapdragon X Elite SoC (system on a chip). Assuming the reports are true, the new unit may be available for pre-order within the coming weeks.