Intel Takes the CES Stage to Unveil the “World’s Fastest Mobile Processor”

The computing industry is under enormous pressure to keep pace with consumers' data demands. These computing companies are expected to maintain the momentum of Moore’s law in order to release newer, more powerful processors.

This week at CES 2023, Intel continued this trend, announcing its newest generation of mobile processors. 

 

With this new 13th-generation mobile processor series, Intel claims it has released the “world’s fastest mobile processor.” Image courtesy of Intel

 

Intel's HX-series Processors Pick Up Speed for Gamers

Out of Intel's many releases at CES, the company’s self-proclaimed flagship offering is its 13th-generation HX series.

From the new series, Intel’s Core i9-13980HX processor is designed for high-performance, lightweight laptops—specifically those used by gamers and content creators. To this end, the 13980HX is a 24-core offering, the first of its kind on the market, and is called the “world’s fastest mobile processor.”

 

Block diagram of Intel's13th-gen core mobile HX series [Click to enlarge]. Image courtesy of Intel 

 

The family takes a similar silicon approach to the Raptor Lake laptop chips but is packed into a 55 W base TDP package for mobile applications. The new chip features a turbo frequency of up to 5.6 GHz, which is said to be the highest clock speed available on the laptop market. Out of the 24 cores, eight are performance cores, while 16 are efficient cores. The cluster as a whole can support up to 32 threads. With these upgrades, Intel reports the laptop can achieve 11% faster single-thread performance and 49% faster multithread performance over Intel’s 12th-generation offerings. 

With the new H series, Intel hopes to provide desktop-level performance for lightweight laptops.

 

Intel Offers H, P, and U Series to Cover All Markets

Following the HX-series offerings, Intel also released its new H-, P-, and U-series processors.

The H series is a slight step down from the HX series in terms of performance; the flagship of this series offers a maximum TDP of 45 W, along with 14 cores (six performance, eight efficient) and 20 threads. The P and U series offer a lower performance with TDPs of 28 W and 15 W, respectively.

Block diagram of the H-series, P-series, and U-series mobile processors [Click to enlarge]. Image courtesy of Intel

 

These offerings will feature support for up to four Thunderbolt 4 connections, USB 3.2, integrated Wi-Fi 6E, and support for DDR5-5200 and DDR4-3200. With these three families, Intel hopes to cover all market segments, ranging from ultra-lightweight and casual to extreme-performance mobile. 

 

Intel Reveals the 13th-gen N Series, an Entry-level Processor

The final processor release from Intel at CES was the 13th-generation N-series processors.

Considered the most entry-level of the processor offerings, the N-series is designed to target segments such as education, entry-level computing, and IoT edge native applications. Built for laptops in the $200–$400 range, the high-end N-series offering features up to eight cores and eight threads while the lowest-end offering is four cores and four threads.

 

Block diagram of the N-series processor. Image courtesy of Intel

 

With TDPs as low as 6 W, the 13th-generation N series features a new efficient-core microarchitecture built on Intel’s 7 process technology. With this technology, the N series is reported to have 28% better application performance and 64% better graphics performance than the previous generation.