Intel has unveiled its Wildcat Lake mobile CPU in a press event, designed for budget laptops, showcased inside a neat reference design. Wildcat Lake is a simpler cutdown design from Panther Lake that launched recently. @Geeky_Vaidy (from NotebookCheck) on X shared a couple of pictures of the device, which, most likely deliberately, looks a lot like a MacBook Neo.
This reference laptop is believed to be powered by the top-of-the-line Core 7 360 packing 2 Cougar Cove performance cores, 4 Darkmont low-power efficiency cores, a 2 Xe GPU, plus a 17 TOPS NPU. While Windows’ Task Manager only showed a generic Intel(R) 0000 model name, it clearly labelled a 6-core design without hyper-threading, clocked at 1.5GHz base. The OS also indicated the presence of 608KB of L1 cache, 10MB of L2, and 6MB of L3.
According to Intel, the best Wildcat Lake CPUs can reach 4.8GHz boost, while supporting up to 64GB of DDR5-6400 or 48GB of LPDDR5x-7467 memory. In this instance, however, the laptop was paired with a more realistic 16GB, of which the GPU seemingly could access 8.9GB.
In terms of power consumption, @Geeky_Vaidy indicated that the device was configured at 17W PL1 and 35W PL2, with a 22W limit at PL1. Most notably, he reported that the unit on hand featured an even lower 11W mode, which allowed it to be cooled passively and silently without spinning fans. A very nice option to have, especially considering its thin design.
Unfortunately, Intel didn’t authorise tests during this event, which could have given us more information about performance at this reduced power budget. That said, @Geeky_Vaidy reports that Max PL1 can be sustained for longer (2min) compared to PL2 (56ms).
Since Wildcat Lake chips were just announced a week ago, Core Series 3 laptops may take a little while to reach stores. This means the reference design showcased by Intel is our only hint at what retail models could look like. What is sure is that we wouldn’t mind something similar, as its full-aluminium body gives it quite a premium look, reminiscent of Apple’s MacBook Neo. The design seems sturdy and clean, and the colour choice is very nice, indicating a welcome change from the usual black and grey themes.
Overall, Wildcat Lake laptops will likely go for the budget segment, fighting Apple’s A18 Pro, targeting students and daily users looking for a machine that can handle light tasks while running on battery for extended periods.
