More details are emerging about Intel’s potentially incumbent-busting Lunar Lake microprocessors. They will likely be used in the Microsoft Windows operating system, but others will use them too. The low-power labeled chips will reportedly combine memory with processing, both within the form factor. A physical size reduction over traditional silicon will enable lighter and thinner laptops. Lower power consumption means smaller, and thus lighter batteries.

A recent leak now reveals pointers as to the naming conventions for the chips. Germany-based tipster Michael (miktdt), publishing on X (formerly Twitter) believes he has grabbed kernel-derived evidence from material published at what appears to be an Intel dev-related website. The print-out linked there reveals that the chip will be named “Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 5 234V.” A compute website, VideoCardz, who spotted the tweet, describes that text from Michael as "the first part based on this silicon." It believes it makes it the first known processor based on Lunar Lake.

The website goes on to explain that the designator “234” makes Lunar Lake a third architecture in the 200 series of chips. We know that includes Arrow Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh too. It also believes that the "V" reference, in the nomenclature part of the text, is specific to Lunar Lake.

As for the “Ultra” adjective, it adds complications because it implies that an “Ultra” designation can now include low-power chips too. That has not been the case before. VideoCardz even speculates that it may now be appropriate to interpret “Ultra” as a newly-adopted Intel-originating euphemism for “New.”

Two leaks now corroborate there will be eight cores

Not much is publicly known about Michael, who joined Twitter in 2015. His account was dormant posting until 2021, when he began posting. He has, however, previously posted about computing performance including Intel graphics-related benching.

Usefully, other data Michael has garnered on Lunar Lake this time around implies the chip has eight cores. This corroborates a leak from another X poster published previously. Michael's capture also displays that there will be eight threads per package.

Anticipation will be building for Lunar Lake—particularly at Microsoft. The reason is that in addition to the size-beating package promising maybe wafer-thin and feather-light laptops, Lunar Lake could help Microsoft (an Intel collaborator) drill into Apple’s territory in specific types of processing. Imaging is one area we know that Lunar Lake is gunning for, which has long been an Apple hardware domain.

The Microsoft-rival firm could see some of its graphics industry dominance wain with the success of a Lunar Lake feature that will be called "Adaptive Sharpening". With this tool, Lunar Lake will likely feature a way of sharpening blurred areas of an image. Usefully, and if it works, it will do it in specific areas of the image rather than over the entire display. As well as photographers, gamers may also benefit. It is likely that AI use cases will also feature heavily in the Lunar Lake chips pitch, too.

We're expecting Lunar Lake to be announced by the end of 2024, alongside Arrow Lake on desktop. With Qualcomm's Snapdragon X series just around the corner too, Intel is almost certainly feeling mounting pressure.