Intel appears to be preparing its own "Halo" lineup within the Arrow Lake family to compete with AMD's Strix Halo and Apple's products.
Intel could push hard with its Arrow Lake Halo processors, targeting high-end workstations with a larger integrated GPU and embedded cache.
A shipping document on NBD.LTD has given us our first look at an early sample of an Intel Arrow Lake Halo CPU, identified as an enthusiast mobile workstation platform. The chip appears to have been tested on "CEDARLHX5SO1DPC1," a reference validation platform (RVP) used to test the chip internally before release. The CPU was shipped recently but appears to have been manufactured around week 34 of 2023, which means it is nearly a year old.
Intel currently plans to launch at least four Arrow Lake lines, including Arrow Lake-S for desktops and Arrow Lake-HX/H/U for laptops. Rumors of an Arrow Lake Halo lineup, however, date back to 2022, when the chip was mentioned by AdoredTV, and at the time it was called Arrow Lake-P (Halo).
Back then, we saw a slide allegedly from Intel that listed the Halo SKU as ARL-P 6C+8A+GT3 "Halo." The chip was said to enter production in week 33 of 2023, which lines up with the production timing in the shipping manifest. These chips were designed to target Apple's high-end 14-inch models and were expected to introduce the Lion Cove P-Core and Skymont E-Core architectures on TSMC's N3 process. The chip would also feature a larger GT3 iGPU with ADM cache acting as L4 for the iGPU. In total, there would be five tiles: CPU, SOC, IOE, GT3 GPU and ADM.
The chip was planned before anyone knew about AMD's Strix Halo, and it seems Team Red found the motivation to develop its own "Halo" SKU after seeing the original plans for Arrow Lake Halo, which were quite compelling.
Intel intended to pack in 14 cores and integrate a larger GT3 GPU with 320 execution units along with a dedicated Adamantine L4 cache, which promised a significant performance boost. The iGPU was expected to use the Alchemist Xe-LPG (+) graphics architecture, but it would still be a solid product thanks to the optimizations Intel has made to its GPU lineup through its latest drivers.
Some of the features we might have seen on Intel Arrow Lake Halo processors include:
- 6 Lion Cove P-Cores.
- 8 Skymont E-Cores.
- Up to 320 Xe-LPG execution units (20 Xe cores).
- Adamantine L4 cache.
- Built on TSMC's N3 process.
However, the plans for Intel's Arrow Lake Halo processors have been changed or scrapped to a large extent. Intel's Arc Alchemist lineup fell short of initial expectations, and the product that actually introduced Lion Cove P-Cores and Skymont E-Cores was not a Halo chip but a thin-and-light SoC called Lunar Lake. Intel also listed "Halo" as a higher priority than Arrow Lake-S, but that no longer holds true, since Arrow Lake desktop processors are still expected to launch in October, while there have been no leaks or rumors about Halo launching in 2024, let alone 2025.
This new listing may offer hope that we could still see Intel Arrow Lake Halo chips in some form, perhaps as a limited SKU developed with an OEM partner, but that remains to be seen. AMD, on the other hand, is well along in producing its Strix Halo processors, which are expected to hit the market next year.
Source: WCCFTECH
