Skip to main content

Leak offers a glimpse at Intel Alder Lake-P for Chromebooks and laptops

We have already heard a lot about Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake platform, but most leaks and rumors have pertained to the desktop range. Now, we have our first glimpse at the mobile Alder Lake-P range, which is rumored to launch at CES 2022 for Chromebooks and laptops.

As discovered by Coelacanth’s Dream, a new patch for the Coreboot software revealed the power limits for multiple chips in the Alder Lake-P range. The patch shows PL1, PL2, and PL4 limits, which each determine a different wattage the processor can run at given certain circumstances.

Galaxy Chromebook sitting on a table.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

PL1 is the wattage the processor can maintain, and that’s normally what you see as the wattage of mobile CPUs. Here are the PL1 ratings revealed for Alder Lake-P:

  • 2 + 8 core: 15W
  • 4 + 8 core: 28W
  • 6 + 8 core: 45W
Recommended Videos

Like the desktop range, Alder Lake-P chips will use a hybrid design that combines big, high-performance cores and little, high-efficiency cores. We don’t have names for each of the processors yet, so we’re left referring to them based on their core counts. In the list above, the 45W chip has six big cores and eight little cores.

These are the default power limits for Alder Lake-P chips, though they’re still subject to change before launch. As reported by VideoCardz, Google’s Brya Chromebook platform is using slightly different numbers. The steady wattage numbers are the same, but Chromebooks won’t draw as much power on PL2 and PL4 (both temporary power limits).

Brya is a validation platform from Google for the upcoming Alder Lake range, according to Chrome Unboxed. Google has been using the platform since December 2020 to make sure the upcoming chips work in Chromebooks, and with slightly tweaked power ratings, it seems they do. On Google’s platform, the 15W chip is rumored to drop to only 3W in an idle state.

Alder Lake-P reportedly compromises the three middle processors in Intel’s mobile Alder Lake range. The Coreboot update also provided a look at one of the two Alder Lake-M chips, which are reportedly targeted at tablets and low-power machines. The 2 + 8 core Alder Lake-M chip has a PL1 of 9W according to the update.

The PL4 limits are interesting to look at, too. PL4 notes the peak power draw of the processor, which shouldn’t last for more than a few milliseconds. At peak, Alder Lake-P chips can reportedly draw up to 215W of power, and Alder Lake-M chips can draw up to 68W. The Brya platform is much more limited with a PL4 of 159W.

According to these numbers, the newer chips will draw more power at peak than Tiger Lake-H. However, the most powerful Alder Lake-P shaves 20W off the PL2 rating of Tiger Lake-H, suggesting that Alder Lake-P is slightly more efficient under normal circumstances.

Jacob Roach
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
Intel’s promised Arrow Lake autopsy details up to 30% loss in performance
The Core Ultra 9 285K socketed into a motherboard.

Intel's Arrow Lake CPUs didn't make it on our list of the best processors when they released earlier this year. As you can read in our Core Ultra 9 285K review, Intel's latest desktop offering struggled to keep pace with last-gen options, particularly in games, and showed strange behavior in apps like Premiere Pro. Now, Intel says it has fixed the issues with its Arrow Lake range, which accounted for up to a 30% loss in real-world performance compared to Intel's in-house testing.

The company identified five issues with the performance of Arrow Lake, four of which are resolved now. The latest BIOS and Windows Updates (more details on those later in this story) will restore Arrow Lake processors to their expected level of performance, according to Intel, while a new firmware will offer additional performance improvements. That firmware is expected to release in January, pushing beyond the baseline level of performance Intel expected out of Arrow Lake.

Read more
Intel Arrow Lake gets a surprise 33% gaming boost — with one caveat
The Core Ultra 9 285K socketed into a motherboard.

Intel Arrow Lake has struggled to compete against some of the best processors from both AMD and Intel itself, but improvements are on the way. In fact, a completely unexpected update just gave the CPUs a major boost. Unfortunately, there's a caveat: That boost only applies to one game.

The update in question was just announced by CDProjektRed, which has dropped a surprise patch for Cyberpunk 2077. The game studio now promises to improve in-game performance on Arrow Lake CPUs by up to 33%, which is a tune-up that gamers badly need, considering that the CPUs generally failed to impress in gaming scenarios.

Read more
Intel admits defeat on Arrow Lake — but it’s not down for the count
intel core ultra 5 245k review 4

Intel's Arrow Lake CPUs aren't off to a great start. As you can read in our Core Ultra 9 285K review and Core Ultra 5 245K review, Intel's latest CPUs miss the mark across productivity and gaming apps, and they're miles away from some of the best processors you can buy right now. According to Intel, there are several issues with the new platform that it plans to address within a matter of weeks.

In an interview with HotHardware, Intel's Robert Hallock was blunt about the release of Arrow Lake CPUs: "The launch didn't go as planned ... we have a number of things we got to go fix." Hallock, formerly of AMD, is near the top of Intel's technical marketing division. Although he didn't address exactly what's wrong with Arrow Lake, Hallock promised that Intel is working on updates that could significantly improve performance, and that they'll arrive in a matter of weeks.

Read more