That tech automatically has a GPU speak to a display so that the frames rendered by the GPU match the refresh rate perfectly. Intel’s new tech would also speak with the display, but it sounds like it would have even more control. For example, if you’re looking at a static image on your laptop, you don’t need the screen refreshing the image 60 times a second to match the 60Hz refresh rate of the display. Instead, it might only refresh it once a second and only crank back up to 60 when the CPU tells it you’re moving the mouse or typing on the keyboard.
Brightness could also be altered. Currently, displays have adaptive brightness, where brightness adjusts based on the light in your environment. Displays made to the Low Power Display spec would apparently be smarter about that brightness—though it should be noted that Intel hasn’t actually specified how these displays would be smarter. The panels built to spec would also only use 1 watt of power, (Intel claims that’s approximately half of what laptop displays currently use), but beyond that, they’ll look just like the displays on laptops now. You could theoretically still have high resolutions, solid pixel density, and the great colors currently available on the most appealing laptop displays.
Besides improving battery life with the new Low Power Display spec, Intel has also announced two new CPU families expected to arrive by the end of the year. First, there’s 15-watt Whiskey Lake, which will be 9th Generation U-series processors that you might find in your traditional laptops like the Dell XPS or Apple Macbook Pro. Whiskey Lake’s existence was first rumored back in December 2017, and it is presumably a further refinement of the 14nm process Intel’s current CPUs are based on. (Intel has provided no details beyond the name.)The second CPU family is codenamed Amber Lake and will be 4.5W Y-series processors like you might find in the Google Pixelbook or the Apple Macbook. As with Whiskey Lake, Intel has provided no details on Amber Lake. And unlike Whiskey Lake, there are no rumors currently available about Amber Lake. So we know very little.
