Intel Prepares Raptor Lake Designs With 24 Cores and 32 Threads, More E-Cores This Time

With the launch of Intel’s Alder Lake processors, Intel has switched from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous design of processors, where smaller, high-efficiency cores are mixed with high-performance cores to create a highly efficient and high-performance processor for all kinds of workloads. And it seems like Intel is not over with adding more E-cores to its future products, as the latest leaks suggest. According to the BAPCO’s Crossmark benchmark database, Intel’s upcoming Raptor Lake processors will feature more E-cores than the high-performance P-cores in the SoC design. As to why this design choice is present, we are not sure and don’t have a definitive answer.

E-Cores are suitable for background tasks, and adding more would potentially leave space for P-cores to do heavier workloads. In the benchmark submission, which is now offline, the samples used were a configuration with eight P-cores and sixteen E-cores. Since the big cores are hyperthreaded, it makes up for a total composition of 24 cores with 32 threads. The platform “RPL-S ADP-S DDR5 UDIMM OC CRB” was used with DDR5-4800 memory, indicating an early stage engineering sample with a probably unfinished memory controller. The Raptor Lake generation will also use LGA 1700 socket, DDR5 memory and be present in the desktop and mobile sector once it launches in Q4 of 2022. It will also use Intel’s 7 semiconductor manufacturing process, similar to Alder Lake. The only difference with the next-generation design is the updated Raptor Cove core design that brings a significant IPC uplift.