Intel 12th Gen CPUs for Slim and Light Laptops Announced

Intel 12th Gen CPUs: After launching the new generation featuring top-of-the-line desktop CPUs in the past year and revealing CES’s top gaming laptop processors in January.

Intel has expanded its 12th generation Alder Lake CPU line with two new slim and light laptops aimed at more mainstream consumers.

The “Alder Lake generation” brings heterogeneous X86 P-cores and E-cores (for performance and efficiency) for the mass laptop market in the first instance in conjunction with Intel Xe graphics.

Intel, the company, will launch more than 250 laptop models in 2022 with these CPUs.

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These include 2-in-1s, detachable, and devices that have foldable screens, such as the ZenBook 17 Fold from Asus. ZenBook 17 Fold that was presented during CES.

Performance is expected to be significantly improved when working on applications that utilize many threads and cores like three-dimensional rendering and photo editing, and general productivity while multitasking.

The P-series is the latest name within Intel’s hierarchy and is designed to address the 28W “enthusiast thin and light” segment.

Six new models are revealed in the Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 levels. The Core i3-1220P comes with two P-cores that have Hyper-Threading, and with eight E-cores, its total count increases to six cores with Hyper-Threading and eight E-cores on the highest-end Core i7-1280P.

The increase in thread count is expected to provide enthusiast-level performance and increased productivity.

Laptop OEMs can also expect to use the up-to four Thunderbolt ports and possibly Wi-Fi 6e.

The U-series is being refreshed and will come in two sizes to meet the 9W segment for highly portable devices and the 15W segment for regular users.

There are seven new models available in each category, with a range in size from Celeron (one P-core 4 E-cores, with none of hyper-threading) and Core i7 (two P-cores, eight Ecores, with 12 total threads).

Intel states that its latest CPUs have the identical Thread Director feature as earlier launched 12th, Gen CPUs.

This allows the user to assign tasks dynamically between E-cores and P-cores following requirements for power and performance and is integrated into Windows 11.

Windows 10 is also compatible but not as optimized to support the heterogeneous core architecture.

DDR5 and DDR4 and LPDDR5 or LPDDR4X RAM are available for all CPUs, excluding those models in the 9W series that only provide LPDDR5 or LPDDR4X.

These CPUs feature identical IO capabilities as the P-series 28W, including support for 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports and 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes.

The smaller size also means less IO that includes more minor USB ports, 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports, and the four PCIe 4.0 lanes to connect an SSD.