Rumor mill: Intel’s next processor for low-cost Windows laptops and mini PCs is starting to come into focus as a new leak hits. Hardware leaker Jaykihn has released base specifications for the chip, codenamed Moon Lake, which describe a processor with four low-power cores and zero-power cores.
Intel’s current entry-level N-series chips also forego performance cores, and Moon Lake would incorporate this approach into the company’s newer tile-based design. If the leak holds, it will be the next generation of N-series processors found in many budget devices. Intel has not confirmed the specifications.
The leaked table lists a Thermal Design Power (TDP) range of 6W to 15W. The lower end is close to the performance limit of system-on-chips for phones and tablets. At 15W, laptop manufacturers would have leeway to trade some efficiency for sustained performance if cooling allows.
The table also suggests that Moon Lake will share its layout with Wildcat Lake, Intel’s Core Series 3 processor family launched in April. Wildcat Lake combines up to two performance cores with four LP-E cores located on their own low-power island on the compute tile.
Moon Lake appears to be dropping the power cores and keeping the island. It reportedly retains Wildcat Lake’s compute tile, multi-tile design and BGA1516 package, and the cores are said to be Darkmont LP-E designs, the same type used in Wildcat Lake’s low-power island.
On paper, Moon Lake looks very similar to the chips it would replace. Entry-level N-series processors like the N150, which power many ultra-budget machines, also feature four efficiency cores with a TDP of 6W. The number of cores and power budget remain the same. What changes is the generation of the cores themselves.
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) October 29, 2026
— Jaykihn (@jaykihn0) October 28, 2026
This is where most of the profits are likely to come from. A newer architecture with higher instructions per clock (IPC) should make Moon Lake slightly faster than its predecessors with the same core count. For buyers, the bigger change might be battery life: Having cores do more work per cycle for the same 6W budget allows a system to complete a task sooner and return to idle sooner, which is helpful in thin, budget designs.
Clock speeds are missing in the leak. For reference, the N150 hits 3.6GHz Turbo. Intel’s latest chips give a hint of what to expect: Panther Lake and Wildcat Lake, both based on the 18A process this year, largely match the clock speeds of the chips they replaced. This suggests that Moon Lake’s gains would be based on architecture rather than frequency.
N-series chips are in the lowest tier of Windows laptops and mini PCs, where price is more important than pure speed. Systems built on Moon Lake would likely fetch around $300 to $500, although that range is uncertain. RAM and storage prices have been driven up by demand from AI data centers, and Moon Lake is reportedly not expected until 2028, so NAND and DDR supply could shift significantly by then, changing the cost of these machines.
The leak caps a busy year for Intel’s client chips. Panther Lake launched earlier this year and Wildcat Lake followed in April, and Intel has said little about its consumer roadmap since then. Some newer models in these families added cores. Moon Lake seems to be going in the other direction, keeping the core count low and focusing on doing more with a very small power budget.
Many details are still unconfirmed, including clocks, graphics and memory support. The leak reportedly points to Intel’s 18A node for the compute tile. As with any pre-announcement leak, specs may change before release, or Intel may never confirm them.
