Intel’s new 14th-gen Core chip, Meteor Lake, is designed as a lot for Intel as it’s for you. A brand new disaggregation scheme separates the “processor” into 4 tiles, slicing energy and growing yields. However a doubling of graphics efficiency and a brand new AI engine helps cater to customers in search of new options.
Let’s be clear, although: Meteor Lake was not designed with CPU efficiency in thoughts. Intel executives describe Meteor Lake as providing the efficiency of the present Thirteenth-gen chip, Raptor Lake, however at half the ability — aided by new low-voltage effectivity cores (E-cores) which are new to the platform. Even the best way Intel assigns CPU duties has been flipped on its head, pushing them first in the direction of the lowest-power E-cores, then migrating them to the extra power-hungry efficiency cores if want be.
Intel unveiled its new Meteor Lake platform in an offsite press occasion in Penang, Malaysia, although the corporate will speak extra about Meteor Lake at its Intel Innovation convention in San Jose this week.
At Intel’s Intel Innovation convention in San Jose, Intel chief govt Pat Gelsinger added two extra particulars: that Meteor Lake will launch on Dec. 14, and it will likely be branded because the Core Extremely. Acer appeared on stage to point out off its personal Meteor Lake laptop computer, and Intel used MSI-branded laptops in Malaysia.
Intel sometimes unveils a brand new chip in two components: a basic architectural overview, explaining the way it all works; after which the data that helps affect shopping for selections, such because the mannequin numbers, speeds, costs (the place relevant), and so forth. Intel’s solely explaining what’s inside its new Core chip, for now. The chip maker isn’t saying when it can ship Meteor Lake, however our guess is that the primary chips will exit the door this fall, with January’s 2024 CES present in Las Vegas serving as a venue to launch the chip into mainstream notebooks.
As you may anticipate, Intel’s new Meteor Lake is kind of sophisticated. Breaking it down into its part components, nevertheless, appears to take advantage of sense. Intel’s Meteor Lake has 4 tiles: one every for the CPU, the SOC, graphics, and I/O. We’ll clarify every in flip, digressing the place obligatory to elucidate how Meteor Lake all matches collectively.
Intel
The highway to Meteor Lake
Historically, an Intel CPU has been divided into two principal components, packaged collectively: the CPU and Platform Management Hub, or PCH. A Direct Media Interface (DMI) bus linked the 2. On this scheme, it’s straightforward to think about the association because the CPU, and “all the things else”: I/O, reminiscence, and so forth. (It’s not that clear-cut, however you get the thought.)
Intel’s new tiled association solves a number of issues. For one, every tile will be labored upon individually, by itself roadmap, and manufactured on the manufacturing course of it calls for. Intel makes use of its Foveros expertise to attach and stack all of them collectively.
After stalling out on a 14nm manufacturing course of for years, Intel’s new plan is to regain manufacturing management by striding by 5 new manufacturing course of applied sciences in 4 years, quicker than it ever has earlier than. However one of many promoting factors of Meteor Lake — that it’s an “Intel 4” chip — is a trifle misleading. Solely the CPU tile is manufactured on Intel 4. In actual fact, the graphics tile and SOC tiles are fabricated at manufacturing rival TSMC.
Intel’s pushing laborious in manufacturing, with an eye fixed towards transitioning away from Meteor Lake’s Intel 4 course of to the Intel 3 course of utilized by future processors.Intel
Intel’s new tiles additionally imply that its logic will be intelligently separated from each other, saving energy. Every tile is linked by a material that gives roughly 128GB/s of bandwidth.
Intel’s chief govt Pat Gelsinger has referred to Meteor Lake as its “Centrino second,” hearkening again to twenty years in the past when Intel launched the Centrino model.
Centrino was the primary time that Intel bundled a CPU, chipset, and Wi-Fi chip collectively, however most overlook that it was additionally Intel’s response to Transmeta, a failed CPU startup that supplied drastically decrease energy choices for laptops. Intel’s legacy CPU-PCH design meant that nearly all duties touched each chips, powering them up into an energetic state. Regardless that Intel then tried to return the CPU and PCH to a low-power sleep state as quickly as doable, it nonetheless was an inefficient use of energy, Intel executives mentioned. By separating Meteor Lake into tiles, Intel can depart the unused tiles in a power-saving deep sleep mode.
Based on Michelle Johnston Holthaus, govt vp and basic supervisor of Intel’s Consumer Computing Group, prospects requested for higher energy financial savings. Meteor Lake will ship the efficiency of Raptor Lake (or somewhat extra) at roughly half the ability, she mentioned.
“‘We love the efficiency that Intel delivers, however we would like it in a extra environment friendly energy envelope and we would like a extra balanced platform,’” Holthaus informed PCWorld in an interview, referring to what she mentioned prospects have informed Intel. “This delivers all that.”
The 4 tiles of Meteor Lake: the CPU tile, SOC tile, graphics tile, and I/O tile. The purpose Intel is making right here is that every tile will be developed individually and packaged collectively to fulfill the wants of a buyer.Intel
However there’s additionally an enormous secondary bonus, too: manufacturability. Intel’s Intel 4 course of is the primary to make use of Excessive Extremely Violet (EUV) lithography, a expertise that solves a elementary downside: The transistors that Intel carves out of its photoresistive silicon wafers are smaller than the wavelengths of sunshine used within the etching course of. EUV (which requires a tough vacuum contained in the tools) is seen as the best way ahead to Intel 4 and past.
Intel doesn’t even manufacture all of its tiles itself. Intel’s Meteor Lake GPU tiles are made by TSMC, in its 5nm N5 course of; the SOC tiles are made by TSMC in its 6nm N6 course of, whereas the CPU tile is made by Intel on its Intel 4 course of. (Intel didn’t say who makes its I/O tile.)
Intel, led by CEO Pat Gelsinger, has pledged to roll out 5 course of applied sciences in 4 years, believed to have begun with the Intel 7 course of utilized by the Twelfth-gen Alder Lake chips. The Intel 4 course of additionally makes use of an alloy referred to as enhanced copper, a mix of copper and cobalt for superior conductivity, Invoice Grimm, a vp in Intel’s Logic Expertise Improvement group, mentioned.
Even higher, Grimm informed attendees that the smaller tiles additionally imply that they’re simpler to truly produce. Small errors within the manufacturing course of could make a chip too flawed to ship (an issue that the iGPU-less Intel “KF” sequence was designed to unravel). Smaller tiles additionally imply extra chips will be positioned on a wafer.
This demonstrates a shocking quantity of confidence in a brand new chip on a brand new course of expertise, one thing that Intel was as soon as extraordinarily reluctant to do. Intel
Based on Grimm, Meteor Lake might be “one of the best yielding product at time zero [launch] in additional than a decade.” Intel expects that Meteor Lake will see higher yields than both any 14nm or 10nm chips, he mentioned. That’s in all probability excellent news for the provision and value at which Intel sells Meteor Lake to laptop computer makers.
Meteor Lake’s CPU tile
As with the Thirteenth-gen Raptor Lake, Intel’s 14th-gen CPU tiles consists of two main components: the efficiency cores (P-cores), now often called Redwood Cove, and the brand new effectivity cores (E-cores,) code-named Crestmont.
We actually don’t know that a lot about what variations there are between Raptor Lake’s P- and E-cores and people present in Meteor Lake. Redwood Cove, nevertheless, does supply improved efficiency effectivity and improved bandwidth, with a bigger, although undisclosed level-2 cache.
Intel’s new efficiency core (P-core), Redwood Cove.Intel
Intel additionally didn’t disclose something about Redwood Cove’s efficiency enhancements. Rajshree Chabukswar, an Intel fellow in its consumer techniques and software program division, nevertheless, mentioned that Crestmont’s efficiency enhancements are between 4 to six % quicker by way of directions per clock versus Raptor Lake. (An IPC enchancment implies that, if Raptor Lake and Meteor Lake had been to run on the similar pace, Meteor Lake’s Crestmont E-cores would run 4 to six % quicker.)
Intel isn’t revealing the assorted Meteor Lake configurations, but it surely did showcase one throughout its Tech Day presentation.
“For demonstration functions throughout our Tech Day presentation, we confirmed a 6 [P-cores] +8 [E-cores] configuration,” an Intel spokesman confirmed in an e mail. “Nonetheless, we’ll be sharing extra product particulars nearer to launch — together with specs, options, configurations, and efficiency knowledge.”
Intel’s new effectivity core (E-core), code-named Crestmont.Intel
To be truthful, we don’t even formally know if Intel will ship a desktop model of Meteor Lake, which some name Meteor Lake-S. As for a rumored desktop “Rocket Lake Refresh” chip, Intel didn’t disclose that chip’s existence, both. We will hope that Intel provides some extra clarifications this week at its Innovation convention.
Meteor Lake’s SOC tile: What low-power E-cores imply to you
One characteristic that’s not on the CPU tile are Meteor Lake’s new low-power E-Cores, and that was a deliberate alternative.
Meteor Lake’s two new low-power E-cores are contained inside the SOC tile, Meteor Lake’s most complicated by way of its array of features. Whereas the CPU tile comprises the CPU cores, the SOC tile is actually the outdated PCH, housing the overwhelming majority of Meteor Lake’s secondary features. Right here, you’ll discover the low-power E-cores, the brand new NPU AI engine, in addition to the show engine, PCI Specific, and extra.
How Intel is considering of its low-power E-cores: as a place to begin.Intel
Why put low-power E-cores right here? Once more, that’s a part of Intel’s low-power plan: By separating the low-power E-cores from the CPU tile, that implies that solely the SOC tile (or a particular portion of it) must be awoken into an energetic energy state. That saves energy, extending the laptop computer’s battery life.
So what’s a low-power E-core? Maybe somewhat lamely, it’s a “new” E-core, a distinct model of the Gracemont structure. Recall that E-cores had been initially designed for low-power duties. The brand new low-power E-cores are designed for what executives known as background “IT duties,” and it’s not clear what these are, solely. Nor do we all know how “low energy” these new cores are.
One somewhat stunning instance of what these “IT duties” entail, nevertheless, was when Intel executives used a low-power E-core to play again Tears of Metal, the open-source video file that we use to measure a laptop computer’s battery life. That’s spectacular!
Traditionally, enjoying again video demanded the eye of the complete CPU up till about 2017. Then, in Lakefield and Alder Lake, Intel started assigning that activity to E-cores and P-cores. Now, video playback has migrated to a tiny portion of Meteor Lake. Think about how usually you play again video. The battery lifetime of laptops ought to enhance dramatically simply based mostly upon this activity alone.
This slide is a refined however highly effective message: In Meteor Lake, anticipate the majority of your PC’s duties to work on the low-power E-cores.Intel
Meteor Lake’s Thread Director makes energy, not efficiency, the precedence
Intel has additionally massively altered Thread Director, the mechanism by which threads or workloads are shunted between cores, inside Meteor Lake. Home windows or Linux understands what must be performed and instructs the CPU to take over. That job is then handed to Thread Director. In Thread Director 2, working on the Core i9-13900K, duties had been routed to the efficiency cores first, then shunted to the E-cores if wanted.
In Meteor Lake, it’s the alternative: Threads are first assigned to the low-power E-cores, then the full-power E-cores, and lastly to the P-cores. Thread Director assigns duties totally different priorities after which assigns the duties accordingly. (The duties are rated not on their efficiency, however by different traits: “0” is “idle,” “2” is “sustained,” and “3” is “bursty.”)
And Intel is severe about this: If a low-power E-core finishes a activity and is freed up, an obtainable thread might be pushed to it, even when a P-core is on the market, Chabukswar mentioned. Even in a state of affairs the place a P-core is free, and Intel’s Thread Director is optimized for efficiency (maybe through the Home windows energy slider), duties might be assigned to the E-cores first, she mentioned.
It is a huge change, so Intel simply explicitly spelled it out: It doesn’t matter what job Home windows assigns Thread Director to do, it can start on the low-power E-cores.Intel
We’ve gone down this highway earlier than. Although Intel seems to have the ability to regulate Thread Director as a coverage, we don’t know whether or not it can. May a gaming-optimized laptop computer characteristic predominantly P-cores, with Thread Director routing threads to the P-cores first?
Chabukswar agreed that Thread Director could possibly be adjusted for the wants of gaming. What isn’t solely clear is whether or not there might be a efficiency penalty for beginning a gaming thread, for instance, on a low-power E-core, then stepping it by to an E-core after which to a P-core — somewhat than recognizing that it wanted a P-core to start with.
Intel already disclosed a few of its power-management plans earlier than immediately. On the Sizzling Chips convention in August, Intel disclosed that it could use “AI” on Meteor Lake to find out how a consumer interacts with a standard activity like opening an online web page.
By rapidly shifting threads to the precise cores after which dropping into an idle state, Intel believed it might save 10 to twenty % in vitality with out impacting the consumer expertise. However Meteor Lake received’t be taught from you: As a substitute, Intel is taking a mean of types from what the machine-learning algorithm has discovered from its check customers.
Intel executives additionally disclosed that they’re working carefully with Microsoft, in order that primary Home windows features will be assigned to the precise cores.
Meteor Lake’s SOC tile: AI arrives in your PC through the NPU
The SOC tile can be house to what Intel calls the NPU, or AI block. In 2022, Intel CEO Gelsinger confirmed that AI was coming to Meteor Lake, launching the “AI PC period.” Based on Holthaus, Intel will ship “tens of millions” of those AI PCs. By the way, this NPU might be on all variations of Meteor Lake, Intel confirmed.
A block diagram of Meteor Lake’s SOC tile. Discover the entire (separate) I/O on the underside, and the AI NPU, low-power E-cores, and show on the highest.Intel
Intel is definitely on its third era of AI: The primary era it purchased from Movidius in 2016, later constructing discrete playing cards into some PCs just like the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Extremely that allow these PCs to do background blurring and noise filtering through what’s often called Home windows Studio Results. (Whereas Home windows Studio Results use the Movidius expertise, Zoom, Groups, Google Meet, and others merely use your PC’s CPU or GPU as a substitute.)
What Intel is making an attempt to do is place the PC for future AI purposes, even when it doesn’t know precisely what they’ll be. Tom Petersen, an Intel fellow, confirmed off Secure Diffusion, an AI artwork generator. He additionally demonstrated a plugin for audio editor Audacity that not solely separated the vocals from the backing devices, however later altered that instrumental fashion utilizing a textual content immediate. Intel’s objective seems to be the tide that lifts all boats, accelerating AI APIs like WinML, DirectML, and its personal OpenVINO inference engine.
“Our objective is to democratize AI,” mentioned Tim Olson, basic supervisor of SOC design for Intel, in a separate presentation.
Intel’s NPU structure, or its AI engine.Intel
The NPU is one a part of that. Intel’s NPU features a pair of neural compute engines, every with two VLIW Shade DSPs inside, with inference engines able to as much as eight directions per cycle. Even for customers used to parsing the variety of cores per chip, base clocks, and turbo clocks, this received’t make lots of sense. What Intel is making an attempt to convey is that AI requires a ton of multiply-accumulate (MAC) directions per cycle, and that these engines can carry out 2,048 MAC calculations every.
Is that good? Is that unhealthy? We actually don’t know. We don’t actually have a basic level of reference for what makes for “good” AI, by way of specs or benchmarks, and Intel executives gave us the concept they’re making an attempt to work that out, too.
Intel’s secret sauce, although, isn’t simply the AI NPU, however how the CPU, GPU, and NPU can all assist help one another. Take the next instance. Operating 20 iterations of Secure Diffusion, Intel tried varied mixtures: performing the entire calculations on the CPU, all on the GPU, all on the NPU, and a mix of all three. Performing all of them on the NPU took 20.7 seconds and 10 complete watts, essentially the most environment friendly use. However performing all of them on the GPU and NPU completed the duty in 11.3 seconds, consuming 30W.
Which is best? Ideally, the consumer and/or Home windows will make that call. However it’s not an easy, easy answer.
Intel isn’t simply banking on its NPU for AI processing — it desires to determine a cross-platform AI scheme.Intel
Intel can be integrating what it calls the DP4A instruction into the GPU, a GPU instruction particularly designed to speed up AI.
Bear in mind, Intel’s not disclosing all of what Meteor Lake hides. We all know, for instance, that PCI Specific Gen 5 (PCIe 5) might be supported, however not what number of lanes. Ditto for what taste of Ethernet the chip will assist, or the variety of USB bus connections. It seems, although, that the chip will assist Thunderbolt 4, however not the upcoming 80Gbps model, Thunderbolt 5.
Intel executives additionally mentioned that the chip would assist DDR5 and LPDDR5, however we don’t know for sure if that excludes DDR4 or LPDDR4. Intel has confirmed that each Wi-Fi 6e and Wi-Fi 7 might be supported, nevertheless, giving gobs of headroom for persistent wi-fi connectivity.
Intel primarily separated the SOC tile into two halves, with an I/O material connecting the entire I/O (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and so forth) to the I/O tile. A separate NOC material connects the low-power E-cores, NPU, and show controller. (A small I/O controller connects each halves.) Once more, this was performed to attenuate energy consumption, as every half can work as independently as doable.
Intel’s imaging and show blocks assist HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1, and embedded DisplayPort 1.4. One essential characteristic that Intel is disclosing is what number of shows Meteor Lake will assist: as much as a single 8K60 show (with HDR), or 4 4K60 shows, once more with HDR. And when you’re a gamer, Meteor Lake will assist a single 1080p or 1440p show at 360Hz. That’s an enormous deal.
Streaming, and decoding, proceed to be a precedence for Intel and Meteor Lake.Intel
The media engine will assist 8K60 10-bit HDR decode and encode, with assist for varied codecs. Amongst them is the open-source AV1 codec, which has already demonstrated spectacular encoding outcomes working below Intel’s standalone Arc chip.
Intel additionally put a small twist in its show engine to save lots of energy: If the identical body occurs to repeat, Meteor Lake is wise sufficient that it could depart the body off solely. Two of its 4 show pipelines are additionally optimized for low energy, which Petersen highlighted as a possible answer for a digital keyboard on a foldable machine.
Meteor Lake’s graphics tile: Ray tracing in an built-in GPU?
Whereas Intel’s debut within the PC graphics area offered a welcome third competitor, the corporate’s efforts in each the built-in and discrete graphics market have had their points. Meteor Lake and what Intel calls its XeLPG graphics block mix components of each markets, updating the Xe (or XeLP) built-in GPU that has been inside Core processors for the previous couple of years. Primarily, Intel is taking as a lot as it could from its standalone Arc GPUs and placing it contained in the built-in Meteor Lake GPU.
“We’ve taken all of the goodness from our XeHPG structure and put it into our XeLPG structure,” Petersen mentioned. Even higher, by inserting graphics on a separate tile, Intel can combine and match graphics efficiency for the promote it’s pursuing, Petersen added.
Intel
Based on Intel’s Petersen, Intel is concentrating on twice the efficiency of the sooner Xe core, and twice the efficiency per watt, too. Intel is growing the XeLPG’s clock speeds, dedicating extra silicon to it, and making it extra environment friendly.
Lastly, Intel is bringing within the eight Xe cores from the Arc A770 in addition to eight ray-tracing items into Meteor Lake. Sure, meaning ray tracing is now a part of the fundamental built-in GPU, and never only a discrete chip. Petersen did admit, nevertheless, that it could be as much as software program builders to take benefit.
The specs of the Intel XeLPG core inside Meteor Lake. They give the impression of being similar to Intel’s Arc GPUs.Intel
Put merely, examine our earlier deep dive into the XeHPG structure and all of it appears to be like extraordinarily related: Inside every “slice” of the XeLPG core are 4 Xe cores, with 16 256-bit vector engines and 192KB shared L1/SLM cache. Intel helps DirectX 12 Final natively.
There are new bits, too. The brand new structure helps FP64 directions — Arc doesn’t — plus out-of-order sampling, and Intel’s software program companions informed Intel that together with FP64 would do wonders for software program compatibility, Petersen mentioned.
Whereas Intel declined to share precise recreation efficiency knowledge, Petersen did comply with share a few of its “micros,” or inside summary efficiency assessments. Measurements starting from triangle draw price (2.6X over the XeLP present in Raptor Lake) to depth check price (6.6 instances Raptor Lake) are one indication that Intel believes that its new Xe cores are head and shoulders above its older expertise. Intel additionally confirmed off Forza Horizon 5 working on the Meteor Lake {hardware}, however didn’t disclose the decision or graphics settings.
That is the closest factor that we now have to efficiency metrics for Meteor Lake’s XeLPG core for the time being.Intel
Meteor Lake’s XeLPG additionally helps XeSS, Intel’s reply to Nvidia’s DLSS. Intel’s expertise renders the body at a decrease decision, then supersamples it as much as a high-res picture.
Based on Petersen, this protects vitality in addition to improves the picture; making use of XeSS lowers the vitality consumed to 526 millijoules versus 863 millijoules. In the meantime, Peterson confirmed off body charges that elevated to 1.69X or so when XeSS was turned on.
Lastly, Meteor Lake introduces what Intel calls Endurance Gaming, which is able to use the Intel Arc Management software for energy administration. The app talks on to Intel’s cell drivers, moderating efficiency and bettering effectivity; in a “common gaming” mode, Arc Management, might allocate 28W to the complete system, together with the CPU and GPU. In Endurance Gaming, that could possibly be lower to a complete of 10W, giving simply 1W to the CPU. Intel’s Petersen mentioned that the sport Rocket League could possibly be run at 30 frames per second at lower than 1W of energy.
Intel
Appendix: Meteor Lake’s I/O tile
We’re not going to speak in regards to the fourth I/O tile, exactly as a result of Intel barely touched upon it. With a lot of the “I/O” features truly contained inside the SOC tile, a few of the extra, market-specific performance could stay right here. What that might be, and what it can seem like, isn’t actually recognized.
Intel confirmed that Meteor Lake could have Thunderbolt 4, not 5, connectivity to exterior Thunderbolt docks, in addition to exterior USB performance — no surprises there. However Intel fellow Mikal Hunsaker additionally indicated that the I/O tile is also reworked to fulfill the wants of the market.
One query that leaves us with: How rapidly will every of those tiles be overhauled? We will’t assist however assume somewhat of how Home windows apps like Pictures at the moment are on their very own growth cycle, and never tied to any explicit Home windows launch. It looks as if Intel could undertake the same strategy.
Intel’s system-level applied sciences
Intel, naturally, doesn’t simply manufacture PC silicon — its Arc software program is proof of that. However Intel additionally outlined a few of the system-level initiatives it could deal with with Meteor Lake platforms, too:
Wi-Fi 7: Intel’s BE200 radio chip (aka Gale Peak 2) might be used alongside Meteor Lake platforms. It helps Bluetooth LE with decrease energy and latency, in addition to Wi-Fi 7 — with speeds of as much as 5.76Gbps, it’s theoretically quicker than most implementations of wired Ethernet.
Intel Unison: Intel’s Unison software program is like Home windows’ personal Your Cellphone, but it surely’s the best option to get the iPhone’s iMessage communication in your PC. It’s rather more highly effective with Android, although, and the up to date Unison software program will assist extending your laptop computer’s display onto an (Android) pill, in addition to simpler wi-fi communication that may benefit from a number of wi-fi connections.
Intel Cool, Quiet, Performant: A part of Intel’s Evo program is working with PC makers to assist co-engineer their notebooks and desktops. Intel confirmed off its dual-channel hyberbaric move design that it patented, and can be utilized with laptops. It additionally developed an ultrathin vapor channel, additionally patented, that it could provide to pocket book makers. Particular software program to optimize fan pace and analyze workloads to shift efficiency up and down are additionally choices.
Intel’s engineering goes past the chip stage.Intel
The fan speeds controls had been designed with acoustics in thoughts, so that they’ll scale up slightly below the purpose the place you’ll discover the fan noise annoying. The workload evaluation software program seems to be, or be associated to, the AI-powered power-management strategies Intel confirmed off beforehand at Sizzling Chips.
Conclusion
Intel could have introduced us a large quantity of details about its Meteor Lake chip, however we nonetheless don’t know that a lot in regards to the 14th-gen Core: when precisely it can ship, its clock speeds, how it will likely be configured for its varied markets, and so forth. Apparently, Intel has splintered its Xeon server chip roadmap into two totally different forks: Sierra Forest, made up of all E-cores, and Granite Rapids, consisting of all P-cores. Intel’s tiled structure ought to enable it a few of these choices, if it so chooses.
We nonetheless await AMD’s response within the pocket book area, and even Qualcomm’s reply with its Oryon (Nuvia) expertise. However Intel nonetheless ships the overwhelming majority of all laptop computer CPUs, making it the dominant participant within the area. You’ve probably simply learn the precise particulars of your subsequent laptop computer’s microprocessor.
Up to date at 9:23 AM on Sept. 19 with extra particulars.
(Disclosure: Intel paid for airfare, room, and board on the occasion, which it referred to as the Intel Tech Tour. PCWorld accepted Intel’s supply solely to achieve entry to the occasion. Intel didn’t ask for, nor did PCWorld present, any editorial oversight to Intel representatives.)