One of the performance metrics that processors have is power versus consumption, which is measured through performance per watt. One architecture can be much more powerful than another when it comes to calculating and at the same time be less energy efficient. Historically, Intel had never taken this metric into account until the mid-2000s, with the jump from its Pentium 4 to Core 2 due to the impossibility of scaling the architecture of the first at a higher speed. That is why they raised a common base architecture for laptops and desktops.
If we go to the present time, we will see that Intel’s Gen 11 CPUs is composed of two different architectures. On the one hand Tiger Lake on laptops and on the other Rocket Lake-S on desktop. The consumption of desktop architecture has been one of the hottest topics in the world of CPUs in recent months and it seems that it will be so again with Alder Lake-S.
High consumption and temperature for the imminent Alder Lake-S
Facing the next generation, Intel has decided to use the same architecture, Alder Lake, for both laptops and desktops. Which does not mean the same chips, since they differ not only in the socket, but also in other elements such as consumption and the number of cores due to the needs of each type of computer. And according to the latest information, Alder Lake-S would have no regard for consumption.
The information comes from the Planning manager of the gaming division at Lenovo, who through his account on the Weibo social network and after having tested the processor has affirmed what you can see in the image above and where he would come to affirm that some models of the Alder Lake-S will consume close to the 250 W as a cap on its TDP.
Previously, information had already been leaked that in PL2 mode the Alder Lake-S can reach 255 W, which means that although the architecture is common in laptops and desktops, in the latter the next CPUs will maximize consumption with in order to obtain the maximum performance of the architecture. Apparently we will see models with a peak consumption 255 W, which will affect models with a K at the end, while models without it will reach 228 W.
What is the source of this information?
The data has been obtained from a test through AIDA64 in combination with the consumption and temperature figures provided by HWINFO. Keep in mind that it is a test that stresses the processor to levels that are within conventional use, but in this case they need to do them to know how far a processor can go in extreme scenarios.
We don’t know which Alder Lake-S is being measured specifically, as only 12 threads of execution are shown running in the image that has been leaked from the benchmark. Let’s not forget that Alder Lake-S can run up to 24 threads of execution. It seems that only half are displayed. The information obtained? As you can see, the temperature can reach 93º C, which is an excessively high figure and therefore will force you to buy a good liquid cooling block for the CPU.
Let’s not forget that this does not mean that the CPU is going to be put to that consumption most of the time, but sporadically and with extreme workloads. 99% of users will never use their Alder Lake-S under these stressful conditions. The conclusion we draw from this? Intel is going to continue the same philosophy for its desktop CPUs at Alder Lake-S, trying to get every last watt out of the power supply.
