Intel Core Ultra 400HX “Nova Lake” Mobile Processor Core Configurations Surface

Intel’s next-generation mobile processor for gaming notebooks and portable workstations, the Core Ultra Series 4 “Nova Lake-HX,” will come in two distinct core configurations, according to a leak by Jaykihn, a reliable source for Intel leaks. “Nova Lake-HX” is segmented from the mainstream “Nova Lake-H” with a wider I/O that supports configurations with discrete GPUs. The top-of-the-line “Nova Lake-HX” processor will come with a CPU core configuration of 8P+16E+4LPE, that’s eight “Coyote Cove” P-cores, and 16 “Arctic Wolf” E-cores, both of which are upgrades over the current “Cougar Cove” and “Darkmont” core architectures, respectively. The Compute tile features 8P+16E cores sharing an L3 cache, while the chip’s 4 low-power island E-cores, also based on “Arctic Wolf,” will be located in the SoC tile.

Intel is also planning a performance-segment “Nova Lake-HX” core configuration, with 6P+8E+4LPE under the hood. This will likely reuse the 6P+8E Compute tile from the mainstream “Nova Lake-H” processor, but with the SoC + I/O tiles Intel plans to use for the “Nova Lake-HX”. This would give the chip a maximum core count of 6P+8E+4LPE. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of both these chip types is the iGPU, and its Graphics tile will be the tiniest variant in the series, with just 2 Xe cores. The iGPU of “Nova Lake” family is based on the Xe4 “Druid” graphics architecture. These chips feature a basic iGPU because they are expected to come with a full fat PCI-Express 5.0 PEG interface for discrete GPUs, and ideally you’d want the iGPU to be as small as possible.