Intel came out swinging, announcing a slew of new chips at CES 2021, including the new H-Series mobile range.
While Intel has long stood as the standard for laptops, that crown has been in contention over the past few years. Thankfully, the new H-Series is looking to turn the tide back in Intel’s favour. Featuring some impressive specs and benchmarks, this could stand up to the claim of being the “world’s best mobile gaming platform, but also the fastest mobile processor ever created.”
“Intel‘s new performance hybrid architecture is helping to accelerate the pace of innovation and the future of compute,” said executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Client Computing Group, Gregory Bryant, . “And, with the introduction of 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processors, we are unlocking new experiences and setting the standard of performance with the fastest processor for a laptop – ever.”
This new range takes the lessons learned on the desktop and pairs them down for the mobile user. Using the new process that features Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores), the new i9 12900HK looks to be a force to be reconned with.
The new chip will boast speeds of up to 5 GHz frequencies, 14 cores (6 P-cores and 8 E-cores) and 20 threads. Intel claims this new chip will offer 28% faster gaming than the previous mobile gaming leader in the market, with it potentially offering up to a 43% higher performance in 3D rendering gen-over-gen.
The new H-Series will also offer support for DDR5/LPDDR5 and DDR4/LPDDR4 modules up to 4800 MT/s. It will feature integrated Intel Wi-Fi 6E, and also comes with support for Thunderbolt™ 4 support that delivers transfer speeds up to 40Gbps and PC connectivity to multiple 4K monitors and accessories.
Beyond the flagship mobile chip, Intel also announced that 22 new processors would be joining the 12th Gen family. These include the new U- and P-series mobile processors. With up to 14 cores and 20 threads and featuring Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, the new P-series processors operate at 28W base power and are designed for performance thin-and-light laptops, while the U-series processors operate at 9 to 15W and are designed for form factor optimized thin-and-light laptops.
With the launch of the new chips, Intel also announced the new Intel Evo third-edition specification for laptops. In addition to the responsiveness, real world battery life, instant wake and fast charge, an additional set of system requirements and tests called “intelligent collaboration” are added to the third-edition specifications. Intelligent collaboration ensures an enhanced experience when collaborating through videoconferencing apps on a PC.
Intel also announced the Engineered for Intel Evo and Intel Evo vPro program to build end-to-end experiences backed by Intel co-engineering and testing for Thunderbolt and Bluetooth accessories. This should mean more accessories you can buy that should just work with your new laptop. It is yet to be seen what will be offered in this range, but more quality across the board is never a bad thing.
The new chips should start showing up in devices in the first half of 2022, and I know we will be excited to see how they stack up when we get our hands on them for previews and reviews.
