Intel Launches Core Ultra 200V “Lunar Lake” While Linux Support Settling

Intel’s Big Leap with Lunar Lake

Intel has officially unveiled their Core Ultra 200V series “Lunar Lake” laptop processors today in Berlin. This launch marks a significant upgrade over the previous Meteor Lake series, featuring notable improvements in CPU cores, Xe2 integrated graphics, and a faster Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for AI acceleration.

Performance Claims and Competition

Intel’s vendor benchmarks suggest that Lunar Lake can outperform AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X1 SoCs. These claims, if validated, could position Intel strongly against its competitors in the AI and graphics performance arenas.

Linux Support: A Work in Progress

While Intel’s disclosures today focused on Windows 11 performance, the Linux community is keenly watching the support for Lunar Lake. The good news is that most of the CPU and NPU functionalities should be supported on recent Linux kernels. However, the Xe2 graphics support is still stabilizing.

Upcoming Linux Kernel Support

The upcoming Linux 6.12 kernel, expected to open its merge window in mid-September and stabilize by November, will enable Lunar Lake graphics by default. Early adopters might need to use the “force_probe” override on Linux 6.11 or run a Linux 6.12 Git snapshot to get the latest support. Additionally, the latest Mesa Git code will be essential for the newest Intel OpenGL and Vulkan driver support.

Pre-Orders and Availability

Pre-orders for Lunar Lake laptops are set to begin today, with availability expected from September 24. I’ll be pre-ordering a unit to conduct in-depth benchmarking and performance tests, particularly focusing on Linux support and the quality of the Xe2 graphics drivers.

Stay tuned for detailed Linux performance benchmarks of the Intel Core Ultra 200V series later this month, along with further exploration of the Xe2 graphics driver quality and other performance tests.