ALDER LAKE PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS

Intel shared that the new Efficient x86 core offers up to 40% more performance at 40% less power draw over a Skylake core in a single thread processing scenario. These figures go up 80% in a quad- thread processing scenario, but we do take these figures with a pinch of salt since Skylake based processors debuted in 2015 – about six years ago. To understand why Intel pulled up this kind of comparison, it’s important to understand that even current Sunny Cove architecture is still derived from Skylake.

What about Alder Lake as a whole versus Intel’s 11th-gen Core processors? Using common industry-standard benchmarks like SPEC CPU 2017, SYSmark 25, PCMark 10, WebXPRT3 and Geekbench 5.4.1 – many of which we use regularly in our tests too – Intel claims an average of 19% performance uplift at the same core frequency. Take note that this theoretical claim is just from the processor’s own architectural advancements, and it doesn’t yet factor in the new packaging, memory, platform, interconnect upgrades and more.

Of course, there are some cases where Alder Lake might see lower performance than an equivalent 11th-gen Core processor and when we delved deeper with Intel executives, they shared that the new processor foregoes AVX512 instruction support and any applications and processes that currently heavily rely on this would contribute to the performance loss they predict. However, Intel doesn’t feel that it would be too much of a concern and should still offer a better overall proposition than 11th Gen Core processors thanks to Alder Lake’s overhauled core design.

Note that these figures were based on a single application using SPECrate 2017 int_base results. Our own experience in running SPEC benchmarks are often an indication of raw power and doesn't translate to real-world client performance with a highly variable workload. So take this performance uplift with a pinch of salt, plus note that it's comparing against an architecture that debuted in 2015.