Intel Wildcat Lake Refresh to double performance cores of low-cost laptops

After the Apple MacBook Neo ($589 on Amazon) made inexpensive laptops with only 8 GB of RAM socially acceptable again, Intel is offering a processor series with Wildcat Lake, which is intended for similarly inexpensive laptops. Models such as the Dell XPS 13 already show that Wildcat Lake can be used to create laptops that are significantly lighter than the MacBook Neo, but still offer comparable performance and significantly better features in some areas, such as the choice of ports or the display's frame rate.

According to the latest information from the usually extremely well-informed leaker @jaykihn0, Intel is already developing a new edition of these low-cost laptop processors. Wildcat Lake Refresh is set to be significantly more powerful. Because while the Intel Core 7 350 only offers two performance cores with boost clock speeds of up to 4.8 GHz and four low-power cores with clock speeds of up to 3.6 GHz, Wildcat Lake Refresh is said to offer a maximum of four performance cores and four low-power cores.

If this information is correct, the fastest Intel Wildcat Lake Refresh processor should outperform the Apple A18 Pro in the MacBook Neo, while more expensive chips such as the Apple M5 or the Qualcomm Snapdragon X are likely to remain well ahead of Intel's low-cost laptop processors. The graphics chip is also unlikely to change much, as Intel will continue to use an iGPU with two Xe3 cores, making the chips unsuitable for gaming. Intel Wildcat Lake Refresh is expected to launch in 2027.