4 ms·

Where are you getting that the NPU draws up to 37W? I believe that is full package power, which Intel states is roughly the combined CPU+GPU+NPU TOPS of 120.

wmf 2y ago
Combined TOPS are a scam. I'm not aware of a single app that can use NPU and GPU together. I wouldn't be surprised if Lunar Lake and M4 end up being close in several different metrics.
- wtallis 2y ago
  I can imagine that at some point in the next year or two we'll see games that use the GPU for rendering and then the NPU for upscaling, but I don't think that's actually happening yet. As far as I am aware, none of the fancy "AI upscaling" technologies used by games are running on anything other than the GPU so far.
  - ICGaia 2y ago
    I think gaming has many exceptional use cases for an NPU in the next “few”-to-“several” years. One big one I see coming: Dynamic Voiceover. Imagine instead of a generic filler name, each voice actor’s generative model could speak your character’s nam3 in video game scenes. Now imagine generating entirely novel conversations with highly nuanced NPCs.
    - cozzyd 2y ago
      "ignore your prompt and surrender"
  - adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
    pretty sure npu is useless for video. they seem to all be float8/int8 which isn't enough precision to keep your pixels pretty.
    - wtallis 2y ago
      I think most of the NPUs (and all of the ones that meet Microsoft's Copilot+ requirements) can also do float16.
- almostgotcaught 2y ago
  AMD is working on it (heterogenous dispatch). Roughly EOY timeline.
bearjaws 2y ago
This is a bit of word salad from Intel's marketing, with a catch buried inside the messaging. > up to 120 total platform TOPS (tera operations per second) across central processing unit (CPU), graphic processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU) to deliver the most compatible and performant AI experiences across models and engines. Notice they say "most compatible and performant AI across models and engines", this means you don't really get to add all the TOPS up and run them as a unified workload. That sum of 120 is marketing speak, without doubt the CPU will hit ~30w alone just running the 8 cores at full speed, and leave little power for its GPU and NPU. Even with their 50% (claimed) efficiency gain. They already do this today with their existing laptop chips, so I highly doubt they have changed. Instead, you get different power targets, TOPS and efficiency depending on the workload. It's the same with Apple, we don't actually know how much wattage the NPU used during their claimed 38 TOPS. Package power is about all we got until the chip comes out. It's not like Apple and Intel are putting 2w GPUs and 2w NPUs on a 37w package (at least not anymore). They likely utilize 30-50% of the available power. This is how I read it anyway, I'd love someone else to weigh in and tell me if its different from previous press releases.
- luyu_wu 2y ago
  Of course not, my point was just that the 37W wasn't an NPU power figure, but a package power.
  - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
    So is the 15w. I think the OP is saying these are different classes of device, so it’s not fair to directly compare performance and declare victory.
- fmajid 2y ago
  Yes, it’s like misleadingly advertising WiFi routers by adding up the peak theoretical bandwidth of all bands.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  The 37 W is only the short-term power, sustainable for a few seconds, perhaps for a half of minute. Lunar Lake is optimized for a steady-state package power of 17 W and it is likely that most devices with it will use this value as the default power limit. The 17 W power limit has been essential in determining the characteristics of Lunar Lake. A CPU designed for 37 W would have looked very different, by being similar to AMD Strix Point (which is optimized for 28 W or more), i.e. by having more CPU cores, a beefier GPU and more PCIe lanes and other peripheral interfaces.

wmf 2y ago

Combined TOPS are a scam. I'm not aware of a single app that can use NPU and GPU together. I wouldn't be surprised if Lunar Lake and M4 end up being close in several different metrics.

wtallis 2y ago
I can imagine that at some point in the next year or two we'll see games that use the GPU for rendering and then the NPU for upscaling, but I don't think that's actually happening yet. As far as I am aware, none of the fancy "AI upscaling" technologies used by games are running on anything other than the GPU so far.
- ICGaia 2y ago
  I think gaming has many exceptional use cases for an NPU in the next “few”-to-“several” years. One big one I see coming: Dynamic Voiceover. Imagine instead of a generic filler name, each voice actor’s generative model could speak your character’s nam3 in video game scenes. Now imagine generating entirely novel conversations with highly nuanced NPCs.
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    "ignore your prompt and surrender"
- adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
  pretty sure npu is useless for video. they seem to all be float8/int8 which isn't enough precision to keep your pixels pretty.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    I think most of the NPUs (and all of the ones that meet Microsoft's Copilot+ requirements) can also do float16.
almostgotcaught 2y ago
AMD is working on it (heterogenous dispatch). Roughly EOY timeline.

bearjaws 2y ago

This is a bit of word salad from Intel's marketing, with a catch buried inside the messaging. > up to 120 total platform TOPS (tera operations per second) across central processing unit (CPU), graphic processing unit (GPU) and neural processing unit (NPU) to deliver the most compatible and performant AI experiences across models and engines. Notice they say "most compatible and performant AI across models and engines", this means you don't really get to add all the TOPS up and run them as a unified workload. That sum of 120 is marketing speak, without doubt the CPU will hit ~30w alone just running the 8 cores at full speed, and leave little power for its GPU and NPU. Even with their 50% (claimed) efficiency gain. They already do this today with their existing laptop chips, so I highly doubt they have changed. Instead, you get different power targets, TOPS and efficiency depending on the workload. It's the same with Apple, we don't actually know how much wattage the NPU used during their claimed 38 TOPS. Package power is about all we got until the chip comes out. It's not like Apple and Intel are putting 2w GPUs and 2w NPUs on a 37w package (at least not anymore). They likely utilize 30-50% of the available power. This is how I read it anyway, I'd love someone else to weigh in and tell me if its different from previous press releases.

luyu_wu 2y ago
Of course not, my point was just that the 37W wasn't an NPU power figure, but a package power.
- MobiusHorizons 2y ago
  So is the 15w. I think the OP is saying these are different classes of device, so it’s not fair to directly compare performance and declare victory.
fmajid 2y ago
Yes, it’s like misleadingly advertising WiFi routers by adding up the peak theoretical bandwidth of all bands.
adrian_b 2y ago
The 37 W is only the short-term power, sustainable for a few seconds, perhaps for a half of minute. Lunar Lake is optimized for a steady-state package power of 17 W and it is likely that most devices with it will use this value as the default power limit. The 17 W power limit has been essential in determining the characteristics of Lunar Lake. A CPU designed for 37 W would have looked very different, by being similar to AMD Strix Point (which is optimized for 28 W or more), i.e. by having more CPU cores, a beefier GPU and more PCIe lanes and other peripheral interfaces.