A Year of Innovation
2024 proved to be a particularly exciting year for the mobile computing landscape, culminating in significant advancements even in the final days of December. This retrospective summarizes the standout mobile CPU products that shaped the year.
Intel’s Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake
Intel kicked off the year in January with its Meteor Lake Core Ultra series, manufactured on the Intel 4 process. Meteor Lake offered notable improvements in GPU performance and battery life compared to its Alder Lake and Raptor Lake predecessors. The 14th Gen HX and H series also launched in early January, finding their way into numerous high-performance productivity and gaming laptops throughout 2024.
However, Intel truly stole the show with the announcement of Lunar Lake at Computex 2024 in early June. This SoC, which began shipping in September, delivered impressive GPU performance, exceptional battery life for an x86 processor, and excellent CPU performance. Notably, Lunar Lake marked Intel’s first departure from hyperthreading. Its memory-on-package design enabled the creation of exceptionally thin and light devices that rarely needed to activate their fans. Designed to compete directly with Apple’s MacBook Air M3 lineup, Lunar Lake achieved its goals admirably.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and Plus
Qualcomm entered the fray with its highly anticipated Snapdragon X Elite, launching in late May and shipping in June. Microsoft’s close involvement highlighted the significance of this launch, as the Snapdragon X Elite and Plus powered the first wave of Copilot+ devices. Qualcomm also introduced the Snapdragon X Plus, featuring 10- and 8-core variants for the sub-$1000 market.
The Snapdragon X Elite delivered exceptional battery life and performance for the thin and light form factor, significantly outperforming Intel’s Meteor Lake Core Ultra 100 series in many respects.
AMD’s Strix Point
AMD launched its Strix Point, the Ryzen AI 300 series, in June. Initially adopted primarily by Taiwanese manufacturers, Strix Point eventually gained traction with larger OEMs like HP and Lenovo in late Q3 and early Q4. It offered respectable performance with a TDP range of 28W to 54W. While Strix Point boasts an excellent GPU, its average battery life proved to be a drawback, as noted in reviews by Notebookcheck and others.
AMD also continued to offer its Dragon Range 55W parts, led by the Ryzen 9 7945HX and Ryzen 9 7945HX3D based on Zen 4. These processors found their way into numerous high-performance designs but similarly suffered from suboptimal battery life.
The Awards
Newcomer of the Year: The award undoubtedly goes to the Snapdragon X Elite. Qualcomm’s Arm-based SoC proved to be fast, highly efficient, and delivered Apple M-series-like battery life. For a first-generation product, it’s an excellent achievement, with room for improvement in GPU performance and emulation. This success sets the stage for an even more exciting 2025.
Overall Mobile SoC of the Year: This honor belongs to the Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200v series. Many in the press proclaimed that “Intel is back” with this release. Its combination of impressive performance from its eight cores, support for extremely thin and light designs (some under 1 kg / 2.2 pounds), and, most importantly, its exceptional battery life and quiet operation make it the clear winner.
Looking Ahead to 2025
AMD: We anticipate Strix Halo, a Zen 5-based product with an enhanced GPU. While likely to perform well, it remains to be seen whether Zen 5 can address the battery life deficit compared to its competitors. Kraken Point, also Zen 5-based and featuring up to 8 cores, is expected in 2025, with hopes that it will improve upon the battery life front.
Qualcomm: The Snapdragon X Elite is expected to receive an upgrade, potentially leveraging a new manufacturing node. The performance figures we’ve seen from the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, a second-generation Oryon CPU built on a 3nm process for the mobile phone market, are promising. A 3nm notebook PC design based on this architecture is highly anticipated for 2025.
Intel: Intel has two exciting parts slated for 2025. Arrow Lake, likely launching very soon, will replace the Core Gen 14 HX and H series in productivity and gaming machines. Later in the year, Panther Lake, built on the Intel 18A process, is expected to surpass both Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake. Panther Lake promises an even faster GPU, potentially the smallest and most efficient transistors, and a more powerful NPU. It aims to outperform both Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake across all metrics.
The advancements in mobile CPUs during 2024 have set the stage for an even more innovative 2025. We wish you all a happy, prosperous, and IT-exciting new year!
