Intel unveiled new processors at its ‘AI Everywhere’ event in New York City on December 14th, including the new Core Ultra chips for PCs, which feature built-in AI hardware. The company also unveiled its 5th Gen Xeon chips for servers and data centres.
The company talked a big game about its Core Ultra chips, promising they would usher in the era of the AI PC. Intel says AI PCs will comprise 80 percent of the market by 2028.
All of Intel’s new CPUs include a neural processing unit (NPU) to run low-power AI acceleration and more. The inclusion of NPUs should make running on-device AI more efficient.
Intel says the Core Ultra chips are the fastest for ultra-thin notebooks and boasted about improvements in efficiency and power. For example, the company says Core Ultra is 30 percent lower in processor power and up to 79 percent lower in power than competitors.
Intel also claimed that Core Ultra offers up to 2x gaming and graphics performance compared to last-gen chips. The company showed a demo of Ghostrunner 2 running on a last-gen chip and a Core Ultra chip. The game was getting roughly double the framerate while the chip used about the same amount of power.
Moreover, the company claimed that the Core Ultra’s AI enhancements could help reduce video editing time by 56 percent, though it’s not clear how it reached this number.
In another demo, Intel had Kawehi, a one-woman band, demo a generative AI feature in Audacity. Kawehi used the tool to generate a piano track to use in a song. Intel also touted the Core Ultra’s local AI capabilities.
Intel says Core Ultra chips will be available starting today across over 230 designs from partners, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, LG, MSI, Samsung and Lenovo.
As always, it remains to be seen how these chips stack up in real-world testing. However, the company has made some significant changes with the Core Ultra chips — the name change being the least of them. As such, it will be interesting to see what these new chips can do.
Header image credit: Intel
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