In a shocking twist, Intel’s future 14th Era Meteor Lake CPU structure will reportedly break up video playback and encode performance from the built-in graphics into a brand new space generally known as an SMU or Standalone Media Unit on the CPU, as reported by Phoronix. It’s a important change by Intel, which can enable media performance for use always, even when the built-in graphics chip is disabled.
In a real-world situation, as soon as Meteor Lake launches, customers constructing gaming PCs or content material creation machines on the long run platform can have entry to all of Intel’s high-quality video decoding engines and Intel QuickSync expertise, even when built-in GPU is disabled in favor of a discrete graphics card, which frees up reminiscence assets and energy assets — shifting them in the direction of the CPU completely. The scenario will get even higher if older discrete GPUs are put in that lack fashionable {hardware} acceleration codecs, similar to AV1 or H265 encoding.
One other perk of this transition is said to Intel’s F-series processors, which lack built-in graphics altogether. Consequently, F-series Meteor Lake processors ought to theoretically acquire entry to all of Intel’s media options – together with QuickSync, even with the iGP disabled at a silicon degree. As well as, Intel server CPUs and potential HEDT chips may additionally profit from this variation since Intel disables the built-in graphics chip from these CPU lineups altogether.
Phoronix noticed this variation based mostly on new Linux enablement work for Meteor Lake, which incorporates patch notes detailing the SMU adjustments. These adjustments embody additional architectural modifications to the graphics unit and transitioning to Intel’s Arc Alchemist GPU structure. Consequently, we should always count on extra superior options similar to AV1 encoding to make their option to consumer-based Meteor Lake chips.
Sadly, we cannot see these new adjustments for some time since Meteor Lake remains to be no less than a 12 months or two away from launch, with Intel busy making ready its upcoming thirteenth Gen Raptor Lake lineup. However, due to early Linux growth work on Meteor Lake, we see thrilling {hardware} adjustments on future CPU architectures earlier than launch.
