This autumn, Chipzilla's Lunar Lake laptops abandoned the use of memory sticks, opting instead to integrate a fixed amount of RAM on the processor package.

However, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has admitted this was a financial mistake, stating, “It’s not a good way to run the business, so it is for us a one-off with Lunar Lake.”

Additionally, Gelsinger hinted that Intel may discontinue desktop GPUs.

Future Intel chip generations, including Panther Lake and Nova Lake, will revert to the traditional method of having memory off-package. Gelsinger explained during Intel’s Q3 2024 earnings call,

“We’ll build it more traditionally with memory off-package, and the CPU and I/O capabilities in the package. But volume memory will be off-package in the roadmap going forward.”

Chipzilla had promoted Lunar Lake’s on-package memory as a competitive advantage for laptop battery life, claiming it reduced the power consumption of data movement by 40 per cent. However, on the earnings call, Gelsinger suggested that Lunar Lake was intended to be more of an experiment than the core of Intel’s laptop strategy:

"Lunar Lake was initially designed to be a niche product that we wanted to achieve highest performance and great battery life capability, and then AI PC occurred. And with AI PC, it went from being a niche product to a pretty high-volume product."

Intel's reliance on external partners for memory chips and wafers from rival TSMC became problematic. Last quarter, when Intel announced mass layoffs and restructuring, Intel’s CFO revealed that Lunar Lake was too costly to improve Intel’s financial situation. While Lunar Lake hasn’t shipped 100 million units, Gelsinger acknowledged it became “a meaningful portion of our total mix.”

For PC graphics enthusiasts, Intel’s discrete GPU efforts appear to be another failed experiment. Gelsinger indicated a shift towards simplifying consumer products, focusing less on dedicated graphics cards and chips.

He stated, “How are we handling graphics? There is increasingly becoming a large, integrated graphics capability, so there will be less need for discrete graphics in the market going forward.”

If Intel discontinues discrete GPUs, it won’t be a huge surprise. The company's gaming graphics initiative saw limited success with standalone cards, primarily competing in the ultra-budget segment, where AMD is increasingly dominant.

It would be unfortunate if Intel never progresses beyond its Alchemist GPUs, leaving gamers anticipating Intel’s Battlemage dGPUs disappointed. Nevertheless, Intel’s Arc graphics efforts, including Battlemage, have influenced the integrated graphics in its laptop chips, enhancing their capabilities.