14-core / 20-thread Intel Alder Lake-P processor spotted in upcoming Samsung Galaxy Book

With the launch of the Intel Alder Lake 12th gen Core CPU family planned for late 2021, OEMs are expected to refresh their desktop / laptop lineups, and it looks like Samsung will be among the first to do so, as one of its Galaxy Book laptops has been spotted in the UserBenchmark database sporting an Alder Lake-P processor. Now, from previous rumors, we are aware that the Alder Lake mobility processors might only be available from early 2022 onwards, so these refreshed Galaxy Books could be announced at CES in January next year.

There are quite a few juicy spec improvements coming with the next year Galaxy Book models revealed in the UserBenchmark database entry. Processor-wise, Samsung is looking to replace the existing quad-core / octa-thread Tiger Lake chips with 14-core / 20-thread Alder Lake-P CPUs integrating 6 big Golden Cove cores with multithreading and 8 small Gracemont cores without multithreading. The UserBenchmark info tool report a 2.25 GHz average clock speed for the new Alder Lake processor on the upcoming Galaxy Book with the 'NP_930QED' ID, meaning that this is most likely an early sample with lower clocks. This model does not benefit from a discrete GPU, but the processor should come with an improved Iris Xe iGPU based on the Xe-LP architecture.

On the storage side we find a PM9A1 256 GB of NVMe Gen 4 x4 from Samsung itself, and there will probably be options with larger capacities. Perhaps the most interesting upgrade here is the addition of DDR5 memory. UserBenchmark is reporting 16 GB of DDR5-6400 RAM downclocked to DDR5-4400 specs, which could suggest that these laptops may come equipped with LPDDR5X. There is no info on screen resolution, but Samsung will probably not upgrade the current 1080p AMOLED screens to keep starting prices as close as possible to current $1,1000 levels.

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