Despite increasingly fierce competition in recent years, Intel remains the go-to CPU maker for laptop manufacturers and consumers alike.
As of the end of 2021, data from Mercury Research suggested the company accounted for 74.4% of all traditional CPU sales. That was driven by strong sales of its 11th-gen processors, although Rocket Lake desktop CPUs weren’t quite as impressive. However, the current 12th-gen chips have been very well received.
But Intel must continue innovating to fend off the likes of AMD, which hit an all-time high of 25.4% in the same report. The upcoming Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 Series set to be its best effort yet.
We know that Raptor Lake CPUs are scheduled for release later this year, but the focus of this article is the following generation. Intel has already confirmed its 14th-gen CPUs will be known as Meteor Lake – here’s everything we know so far.
Intel Meteor Lake release date
Intel has taken the unusual decision of confirming a release date already, although it’s nothing more specific than 2023.
Meteor Lake officially reached its ‘tape in’ phase in May 2021, according to Intel’s Gregory Bryant:
Great way to start the week! We are taping in our 7nm Meteor Lake compute tile right now.
A well-deserved celebration by the team on this milestone. #IAmIntel #Innovation pic.twitter.com/oHYhFvo3iF
— Gregory M Bryant (@gregorymbryant)
May 24, 2021
That’s where all the different parts of the chip are brought together for the first time – ‘tape out’ is when a final design is ready for manufacturing.
Almost a year later, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed Meteor Lake has booted Windows, Chrome OS and Linux successfully. This kind of internal testing usually takes place well ahead of time, so we’re still unlikely to see the first 14th-gen CPUs until the second half of 2023.
Then, as Wccftech reports, Intel has now confirmed that Meteor Lake will begin shipping in 2023. A YouTube video from ‘Moore’s Law is Dead’ suggests it’ll be Q2/Q3 for laptop chips, before the first desktop CPUs arrive in Q4.
Intel Meteor Lake pricing
Considering there are still two processor generations between now and the scheduled release of Meteor Lake, it’s almost impossible to predict pricing. For reference, this is how much current-gen Rocket Lake chips cost:
Core i9-11900K – $513-$539
Core i7-11700K – $374-$399
Core i5-11600K – $237-$262
Core i5-11400K – $157-$182
Prices have been gradually increasing generation-on-generation, so the equivalent chips could be significantly more expensive by the time Meteor Lake arrives.
Should Intel also release integrated chips designed for laptops, these will be priced depending on the other hardware and not available to buy as standalone components. Which brings us on to the next section…
Will Intel release Meteor Lake desktop and mobile chips?
Most likely, although their releases may be staggered. Following the release of Meteor Lake, Intel will probably be keen to get 7nm chips on as many PCs as possible. Intel’s huge device portfolio will make that a challenge, but we don’t expect it to wait long before desktop and laptop Meteor Lake CPUs become available.
Intel Meteor Lake spec rumours
As you might expect, concrete rumours about Intel’s 2023 processors are relatively thin on the ground. At Intel’s recent ‘Unleashed: Engineering the Future’ event, CEO Pat Gelsinger explained that the company has ‘rearchitected and simplified our 7nm process flow, increasing our use of EUV by more than 100%’. EUV refers to ultraviolet lithography with an extremely short 13.5nm wavelength. Intel appears to have overcome previous issues with the technology that prevented an earlier rollout.
Meteor Lake is expected to use the same hybrid CPU design that will be introduced in Alder Lake. This includes both high performance and power efficiency cores, although Intel will combine Gracemount with Ocean Cove as opposed to Golden Cove. It’s not yet clear what benefits this will bring.
A May 2021 Wccftech article then suggested that Meteor Lake will use a brand new architecture known as Redwood Cove. This will be the successor to Golden Cove (expected to debut on Alder Lake CPUs), and will supposedly deliver ‘IPC and architectural improvements’.
Other key rumoured specs for Meteor Lake are revealed later in the article. These include the LGA 1700 platform and DDR5 memory, with author Hassan Mujtaba hinting at potential 800-series chips and PCIe Gen 5 support.
Nothing else has been revealed just yet, although there are plenty more changes expected between now and the expected release of Meteor Lake. These include PCIe Gen 5 and up to 48 Platform PCIe Lanes with Alder Lake, alongside DDR5. Then there’s Raptor Lake, which is expected to add DLVR Power Delivery and an improved CPU cache for desktop gaming. That’s also where we’re expecting some core changes similar to those mentioned above.
A June 2022 YouTube video from ‘Moore’s Law is Dead’ claims to leak several key Meteor Lake specs:
Key takeaways here include a new LGA 2551 socket, significant IPC increases compared to Raptor Lake and a new architecture to rival AMD’s Zen 4 for the desktop CPUs. However, some clock speed regressions are expected. The video was also unable to reveal clock speeds.
We’ll update this article once we know more about Meteor Lake. If you’re in the market for new Intel CPUs right now, see our full guide to 12th-gen Alder Lake chips.
