Upgrading to Alder Lake

Time 3 minute read — Calendar 2022-03-31 — Person George Singer — Pricetags #update and #timeline

We are upgrading all Founders' Edition headsets to Alder Lake processors + 32GB LPDDR5 RAM (formerly: Tiger Lake + 16GB of LDDR4X). Regular edition headsets will likely also receive the CPU upgrade, with the option to upgrade to 32GB of RAM.

New Compute Specs

An overview of our new (vs. old) specs:

Old Compute SpecsNew Compute Specs
Tiger Lake (11th Gen)Alder Lake (12th Gen)
ManufacturerIntelIntel
Platform
LinuxLinux
CPU11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G712th Gen Intel Core i7-1265U
Cores410 Processor Cores (2 "Performance Cores" + 8 "Efficiency Cores")
Threads8 threads12 threads
Cache12MB L3 Cache12MB L3 Cache
TDP12W ~ 28W TDP12W ~ 28W TDP
CPU Frequency1.2 GHz ~ 4.70 GHz Turbo;P-Cores: 1.8GHz ~ 4.8GHz Turbo; E-Cores: 1.3GHz ~ 3.6GHz Turbo
Memory Capacity16 GB LPDDR4X (Regular Edition)16 GB LPDDR5 (Regular Edition)
16 GB LPDDR4X (Founders Edition)32 GB LPDDR5 (Founders Edition)
Type of RAMLPDDR4XLPDDR5
RAM Frequency4266 MT/s5200 MT/s
RAM Transfer Speed68.3 GB/s83.2 GB/s
GPUIris Xe graphicsIris Xe graphics
WiFiWi-Fi 6 (Intel AX201)Wi-Fi 6e (Intel AX211)
BluetoothBluetooth 5.2Bluetooth 5.2
ChipsetIntegratedIntegrated
  1. Cores. Our i7 upgrade boosts cores from 4 to 10, but splits them up into 8 "Efficiency Cores" (or "E-Cores") plus 2 "Performance Cores ("P-Cores").
  2. Threads. Only the 2 P-Cores are hyperthreaded (supporting 2 threads per P-Core), while the 8 E-Cores remain single-threaded. This comes out to 12 threads in total ((2 threads * 2 P-Cores) + (1 thread * 8 E-Cores) = 12 threads).
  3. CPU Frequency. Intel processors run at variable CPU frequencies, depending upon power availability and performance requirements. The E-Cores run at a base frequency of 1.3 GHz, but can be turboed up to 3.6 GHz when needed. As you'd expect, the P-Cores run faster: 1.8 GHz base frequency, or up to 4.8 GHz when turboed.
  4. RAM. The upgrade to LPDDR5 memory boosts our maximum transfer rate from 68.3 GB/s to 83.2 GB/s, for a 21.8% boost. Founders Edition headsets will also double memory capacity from 16GB to 32GB, which should come in handy.
  5. Graphics. The new CPU continues to use Intel Iris Xe for integrated graphics. The faster LPDDR55 memory should provide a graphical boost as well.