“Unleashing Power: Intel’s Core Ultra CPUs Power Up High-Performance Gaming Laptops!”

Following a contentious introduction on desktops, Intel is presenting its Arrow Lake processor for laptops here at CES 2025, anticipating that the chip’s focus on reduced power consumption will receive a more favorable response. This marks the debut of the Core Ultra branding for gaming laptops.

For those curious about the potential arrival of fanless chip cooling solutions in the market, Intel has updates on that front as well. The company confirmed that it is collaborating with Ventiva’s silent cooling solution alongside an undisclosed laptop manufacturer as part of Intel’s “Evo” co-engineering program with its laptop partners.

Intel revealed new processors spanning three distinct families: the Core U for ultra-thin laptops; the Core H for high-performance laptops; and the Core HX, also tailored for high-performance laptops but focused on gaming.

One Core Ultra Series 2 family, three CPU architectures

It’s not unexpected that these latter two families are predominantly based on the Arrow Lake architecture; Intel indicated last year that mobile Arrow Lake chips were on the horizon. However, the Arrow Lake-U Core Ultra 2 chips are constructed around an updated version of the Meteor Lake architecture found in the first-generation Core Ultra chips, incorporating that architecture’s low-power efficiency cores.

This summer, Intel introduced “Lunar Lake,” the Core Ultra Series 2 processor explicitly crafted for extended battery life, fueled by its unique architecture. Our tests on Lunar Lake demonstrated that Intel’s chip holds up well against Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X processor platform regarding both performance and all-day battery longevity. Conversely, AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 mobile platform secured the overall performance lead.

To put it differently, Lunar Lake registered a minor decline in performance compared to the initial Core Ultra chip, Meteor Lake. In our assessments, an Asus ZenBook 14 OLED featuring a Core Ultra 7 155H chip outperformed an identical ZenBook equipped with a Core 7 258V by 17 percent in a multithreaded test using Geekbench 6.3. In single-threaded tests, the 155H outpaced Lunar Lake by approximately 39 percent.

Intel aspires for these “Arrow Lake” Core Ultra Series 2 H-series chips to alter the narrative.

Intel Core Ultra 200H, Intel’s chip for “performance” laptops

Intel is rolling out five new Core Ultra 200H processors, featuring 14 to 16 cores and threads. (These chips also lack hyperthreading.) The Core Ultra 5 225H, being the slowest in the group, operates at 4.9GHz, while the top performer, the 285H, runs at 5.4GHz. The thermal design power varies from 28 to 45W in base mode and reaches either 60W or 115W in turbo mode.

Intel claims the “next-gen” Lion Cove performance cores and Skymont efficiency cores within this new lineup provide performance improvements greater than 15 percent in both single-threaded and multi-threaded scenarios compared to the Core Ultra 100H. It remains unclear if they have undergone further tuning since Intel originally indicated a 14 percent difference between Lion Cove and Meteor Lake’s performance core, known as Redwood Cove. Nonetheless, these Core Ultra 200H chips incorporate the low-power efficiency cores of Meteor Lake.

These chips also feature the upgraded second-generation Arc GPU that accompanied Arrow Lake, which reportedly delivers 15 percent enhanced graphics performance over Meteor Lake, according to Intel vice president Josh Newman. From an AI standpoint, this latest suite of Core H chips provides up to 99 TOPS across the platform, encompassing the GPU, NPU, and CPU.

Intel’s Arrow Lake desktop chip comprises compute, GPU, SOC, and I/O tiles, along with a “filler” and “base” tile for stability—all interconnected utilizing Intel’s Foveros technology within a singular package. It is expected that the mobile Core Ultra 200H chips will follow the same design.

The H-series platform will offer an x8 PCI Express Gen 5 connection in addition to a pair of x4 PCI Express Gen 4 connections. Intel will supply four Thunderbolt 4 ports (which is double the standard two) and will make discrete Thunderbolt 5 chips available to notebook manufacturers. Integrated Wi-Fi 6e will be provided, with Wi-Fi 7 available as an option. Additionally, Core Ultra 200H laptops will be capable of connecting to LPDDR5X-8400 memory, DDR5-6400 memory, and even LPDDR5/5X CAMM2 memory, allowing for 96GB (DDR5) and 64GB (LPDDR5) in total.

Intel’s Core H chips are scheduled to be shipped to customers later in the first quarter.

Intel Core Ultra 200HX: Intel’s gaming champion

From an architectural perspective, Intel executives have expressed that they view the Arrow Lake-S desktop chip and the mobile Arrow Lake-HX for laptops as essentially two iterations of the same chip designed for the enthusiast PC segment—there are variances in packaging, the amount of power they consume, and a few other software adjustments. Otherwise, they remain identical, noted Greg Boots, Arrow Lake’s product marketing manager, during the Lunar Lake launch.

Intel is withholding extensive details regarding the performance of the Core Ultra 200HX, but the integration of eight Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Skymont cores is expected to enhance performance by 5 percent in single-threaded scenarios and 20 percent in multi-threaded contexts compared to the preceding Core-HX model, drawing from Intel’s 13th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh. “High-performance levels for enthusiasts at reduced power consumption” is how Intel characterizes it.

Although desktop iterations of Arrow Lake didn’t consistently launch with a dedicated GPU, it’s considerably more typical for a Core HX gaming laptop to incorporate a discrete GPU. Intel mentions that these devices will arrive in “late Q1 2025,” which likely refers to March. You will need to wait until that time for Intel to provide its forecasts on gaming performance outcomes.

Newman indicated that Intel will roll out six Core HX processors, ranging from the Core Ultra 9 285HX (8 P cores, 16 E-Cores/24 threads, 5.5GHz) down to the Ultra 5 235HX (6 P-Cores, 8 E-Cores, 14 threads; 5.1GHz). Their power consumption varies from a baseline of 15W to a turbo power reach of 57W.

In comparison with Intel’s 14th-gen Core HX models, it’s not a definitive triumph for Intel’s most recent Core 200HX generation. For instance, the Core i9-14900HX boasted the same 24 threads. That processor reached P-core turbo frequencies up to 5.8GHz, contrasting with the 5.5GHz of the Core Ultra 9 285HX. Conversely, the 285HX operates the E-cores at a maximum of 2.8GHz, which is significantly quicker than the minimum E-core frequency of 2.2GHz for the i9-14900HX. (We anticipate more performance metrics soon, ideally.)

From a platform perspective, a Core Ultra 200HX component will support the same memory setups as the Core Ultra 200H versions — accommodating up to 64GB or 96GB of DDR5 and LPDDR5x, respectively. Intel also provides laptop manufacturers with a x4 PCIe Gen 5 interface and four PCIe Gen 4 lanes, but only offers two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Discrete Thunderbolt 5 is also an option.

Additionally, Intel is announcing that it will introduce extra “Arrow Lake” S-series desktop products early in the first quarter and will also launch new laptops featuring a new U-series chip based on Arrow Lake.

Intel’s Arrow Lake U series fuses both Core Ultra processors

These U-series processors are compelling, as they offer an exciting blend of Intel’s Core Ultra technologies.

“The Intel Core Ultra 200U series processors leverage the Redwood Cove (P-core) design, initially introduced in the Intel Core Ultra Series 1 processors, alongside the Crestmont (E-core) architecture present throughout the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 family of processors,” stated an Intel representative in an email. “Nevertheless, the Intel Core Ultra 200U series is crafted on the Intel 3 manufacturing process, unlike the Intel 4 process designed for Intel Core Ultra Series 1 chips, enhancing the overall performance of the processors.”

The Intel Core Ultra 200U series further includes elevated clock rates on the NPU, in addition to integrated Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, as noted by the Intel spokesperson.

Intel also intends to deliver commercial variations of the Core Ultra 200V series — products that Intel introduced as part of Arrow Lake “shortly after CES,” according to Intel’s Newman. Finally, Newman mentioned that the company’s Evo-certified program, which collaborates with device manufacturers to create laptops and PC peripherals, has now reached 24 partners and over 70 device offerings.