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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he\u2019s not working, you\u2019ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-20/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Hassam Nasir Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
usertests The desktop APU value proposition can be dubious, but sometimes cheap or refurbished pre-builts can help. Refurb OmniDesks with 8700G / 32 GB / 1 TB have been sub-$600. If this is real and Intel gets this into OEM PCs, I'll be watching for it. If Xe3P is significantly better than Xe3, this part is potentially 2x the GPU performance of Strix Point, with an even larger lead over the 8700G. Maybe it's between the performance of an RTX 3050 8GB and GTX 1080. With a better set of features than pre-RTX cards. We probably won't see this for at least a year. Reply
ezst036 It would be awesome if Intel capitalizes off of all of the buzz that's going around about Nova Lake and also changes its future policy toward having sockets that last longer than just tick tock. That would really be a nice sparkly bow on the present. Reply
beyondlogic If intel and AMD want better apu adoption put it in midrange to low end For amd Ryzen 3 and 5 Intel i3 to i5. If a cpu costs so much that you can get a CPU and GPU cheaper it becomes pointless. I'd be curious to see a Ryzen 5 with more GPU heavy should be doable as your making more space for GPU portion by going from 8 to 6 cores Reply
Notton I would hope the desktop variant uses the I/O die with more PCIe lanes. Depending on total price, it might be a good APU to pair for LSFG dual GPU. Reply
thestryker usertests said: The desktop APU value proposition can be dubious I think most of the problem here has been due to the sacrifices made to get the integrated graphics. For AMD it has been a combination of the cache cut, lower clocks, less PCIe and having to buy the most expensive CPU to get the best graphics. Unfortunately this looks like Intel may be following AMD on the pricing side. The NVL SKU leak has 4/8/4 being a U7 part which means this likely would be as well. It won't be faster than the U5 6/12/4 for gaming and I can't imagine it will be cheaper. So even if there are no other sacrifices it doesn't seem likely to make sense to buy unless you're buying it as DIY NUC (or OEM system as you suggest). While I know Intel isn't going to put a big Graphics Tile with the big Compute Tile if a part like this was priced where the lowest K SKUs usually are I could see more potential. Buyers would know that spending less money wouldn't get them more CPU performance so the choice becomes graphics vs CPU at the same price. Reply
usertests thestryker said: While I know Intel isn't going to put a big Graphics Tile with the big Compute Tile if a part like this was priced where the lowest K SKUs usually are I could see more potential. Buyers would know that spending less money wouldn't get them more CPU performance so the choice becomes graphics vs CPU at the same price. CPU performance is what I'm least worried about. 4P + 8E of the latest cores (bit higher IPC than Raptor/Arrow Lake) should be good enough for almost all games, and fine for everything else. If it's outperforming the Arc B390 iGPU from being upgraded to Xe3P/Celestial, maybe it could be credibly equivalent to $150-200 dGPUs. But you bring the expensive DDR5 and speed can affect performance. Maybe a bit less than usual if it has a large L2 cache (Arc B390 has 16 MiB L2, which is what I'm calling "large"). Reply
thestryker usertests said: CPU performance is what I'm least worried about. 4P + 8E of the latest cores (bit higher IPC than Raptor/Arrow Lake) should be good enough for almost all games, and fine for everything else. The CPU is the important part for the long term value proposition. If I'm building a system and the choice is for $250 I can get a good integrated GPU or better CPU performance that's one thing. If the choice is $250 for a better CPU or $350 for better integrated graphics and worse CPU that equation looks significantly worse. Spending more money like that just for better integrated graphics really doesn't make sense unless you're doing it for the form factor. Reply
IntelUser2000 usertests said: If Xe3P is significantly better than Xe3, this part is potentially 2x the GPU performance of Strix Point, with an even larger lead over the 8700G. Maybe it's between the performance of an RTX 3050 8GB and GTX 1080. With a better set of features than pre-RTX cards. I had a GTX 1080 with Pentium Gold G6400(10th Gen). On Expedition 33, Pantherlake's 12 Xe3 cores already run equal or better than my system. So Xe3P would be significantly faster than the GTX 1080, considering desktop variants are unrestrained in power management and TDP thus perform even better. Reply
-Fran- This is actually interesting. I hope Intel gets the APU balance right. Also, re: APUs are not really "good value". They have never been designed to really replace a GPU with their iGPU and Strix Halo is just the very first commercial unit we've seen making a proper jump trying to minimise all the obvious issues with stronk GPU and weak IMC or memory bandwidth. Their "value" has always been in small builds. And no, "shoe boxes"* are not "small". Think RaspberryPi sized competitors; bigger than, but around that ballpark. That is where they are unbeatable. Just look at the Steam Deck and most handhelds of the last several years. So, in short, this is the main takeaway: APUs are not meant to replace low entry budget builds, but enable truly compact HTPC and custom miniature PCs. At best, in "normal" sized PCs, act as a stopgap or in-between a CPU+GPU pairing. Yes, you can always get a better "performance" level from buying used or new, but heavily discounted CPUs with any GPU, but that comes with tradeoffs, not in the monetary cost area. Anyway, going back to Intel's news: if they get me a very nice APU, I'll give it a try inside my HTPC. Regards. Reply
usertests IntelUser2000 said: I have a GTX 1080 with Pentium Gold G6400(10th Gen). On Expedition 33, Pantherlake's 12 Xe3 cores already run equal or better than my system. So Xe3P would be significantly faster than the GTX 1080, considering desktop variants are unrestrained in power management and TDP thus perform even better. I was guessing using TPU. I may have undershot it, but if Arc B390 is considered slightly behind RTX 4050 (laptop), I don't think it's faster than a GTX 1080. Also, is there a CPU bottleneck with that dual-core? We don't know what Xe3P will bring over Xe3, but +20% should be enough to get them to around double Strix Point's performance. Any more than that would be great. AMD hasn't even committed to releasing a desktop APU with Radeon 890M, their best for now is still the 8700G with Radeon 780M. thestryker said: The CPU is the important part for the long term value proposition. If I'm building a system and the choice is for $250 I can get a good integrated GPU or better CPU performance that's one thing. If the choice is $250 for a better CPU or $350 for better integrated graphics and worse CPU that equation looks significantly worse. Spending more money like that just for better integrated graphics really doesn't make sense unless you're doing it for the form factor. It could take a long time before the 4+8+4/16t CPU becomes a real gaming bottleneck. Just look at the happy Pentium Gold G6400 user. The biggest problem I see is that even if this (hypothetical) Nova Lake-G could perform like a $200 dGPU today, all it would take is one good new budget GPU in 2027 to knock it out of the park. AMD RDNA5 "AT4" with 12 GB LPDDR5X could do it. Or an RTX 6050. If Intel bothers to launch a low-end discrete Celestial GPU, that could do it. Reply
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/intels-promising-upcoming-nova-lake-s-lineup-reportedly-includes-an-igpu-focused-sku-with-12-xe3p-cores-new-leak-claims-a-midrange-16-core-cpu-with-powerful-integrated-graphics-is-in-the-works#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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