The next generation of the familiar wireless communication standard is not yet ready to move the Raptor Lake generation forward – but there are interesting and unexpected improvements within the new processor family as well
Intel’s 12th generation Core, also known as Alder Lake, helped significantly advance home wireless communication technology with the widespread adoption of Wi-Fi 6E, with the use of spectrum bands around three central frequencies and an improvement in the stability and typical dwell times of the networks it provides can be found today in almost every home and every office. Not all smart devices, network equipment and accompanying wireless accessories are adapted to exploit the capabilities of the device, naturally, but if you purchase a computer in 2022 – there is a high probability that you are also covering yourself for the future with the most advanced wireless communication technology available, which is great news in our opinion.
The next generation of Wi-Fi, in the 802.11be standard which received the brand name Wi-Fi 7, has already been defined – and although it is not yet ready for its official debut in the new Raptor Lake generation (, as part of the Intel Tech Tour event we received demonstrations On a number of improved wireless technologies that will be provided to consumers who decide to upgrade during the coming year.
Intel’s 13th generation Core will benefit from official support for Wi-Fi Sensing technologies, which are based on the electromagnetic waves propagated from the wireless network card in the stationary or mobile computer as a kind of radar – which knows how to sense the presence of a person at a distance close to him and the state in which he leaves the The place or alternatively approaches it, and thus with a suitable integration of hardware and software it has the ability to lock the work station automatically when the user gets up from the table and leaves, or to activate the position without contact at all when he arrives. Entry into a contactless window system, through facial recognition, It has existed for several years thanks to Windows Hello technology – but Intel states that a combination of this capability together with Wi-Fi Sensing can further shorten and optimize the operation time when the system’s transition from sleep mode to operation mode begins a few seconds before the built-in facial features check of Microsoft using the camera.
Other improvements in the wireless setup in the Raptor Lake generation focus on the latest Bluetooth LE standard, with support for the first time for wireless hearing aids that makes pairing them much easier and faster than before and helps improve battery life – as well as support for Broadcast from one source (your computer ) to several supporting wireless speakers, for parties or just situations where you want to play your music in several rooms around the house.
With all due respect to the wireless improvements that have entered the generation of Raptor Lake processors, there is no dispute that the data about the Wi-Fi 7 standard that should be ready for official operation at the end of 2023 or during 2024 are the ones that stole the show – when supporting double frequency channels than those of the Wi-Fi 6E generation (up to 320MHz) with unusually advanced 4K-QAM coding enabled Intel and its partner Broadcom to demonstrate practical transfer speeds of over 5Gbps, out of a theoretical 5.6Gbps for this generation, based on a MIMO interface of 2 antennas on the receiver side and 2 antennas on the transmitter side. In other words, an interface that should be available in the 14th or 15th Core generation in the vast majority of laptops and desktops.
In addition to the increased speed, more flexible support for a number of channels in each defined frequency band will allow optimal utilization of the wireless space, which is becoming more crowded with more and more wireless smart devices found in homes, offices and public spaces – when now even any permanent interference on part of an existing frequency band will not become it to unusable, but will allow the Wi-Fi standard to utilize the remaining free space with a division into small 20MHz bands, instead of 40MHz to 160MHz in the Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E generations. In other words – there are quite a few good reasons to wait for Wi-Fi 7, hoping that it will arrive as soon as possible and be properly adopted by the entire industry.
