Intel Core Ultra 5 225H: 14% Faster Single-Core, 16% Better iGPU, Still Behind Lunar Lake

11.12.2024

Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra 5 225H processor, part of the Arrow Lake-H mobile family, has shown promising improvements in initial Geekbench tests. Compared to its predecessor, the Core Ultra 5 125H, the 225H offers noticeable gains in both CPU and iGPU performance. However, these improvements still fall short of surpassing the Lunar Lake series, which outperforms Arrow Lake in key areas despite its lower power consumption.

The Core Ultra 5 225H features a hybrid architecture with 14 cores—four performance cores (P), eight efficiency cores (E), and two low-power efficiency cores (LPE). With a boost clock of 4.9 GHz, the 225H is about 9% faster than its predecessor, the 125H, in terms of clock speed. It also boasts 14 threads and 18MB of L3 cache. Early tests show that the 225H achieves 2,547 points in single-core performance and 12,448 points in multi-core, which is a 14% improvement in single-core speed over the 125H. However, multi-core performance is less impressive, with only an 8% increase, possibly due to the absence of hyperthreading.

In terms of iGPU performance, the Core Ultra 5 225H is equipped with Intel’s Arc 130T integrated graphics, featuring 7 Xe cores running at 2.2 GHz. It outperforms the iGPU in the Core Ultra 5 228V, which uses Xe2 cores, in synthetic OpenCL tests. Despite this, the overall gaming and real-world performance will depend on driver optimizations and game-specific support. Still, the 225H’s iGPU is 16% faster than its predecessor in the Meteor Lake series.

One of the main reasons for Lunar Lake’s superior performance is its lower thermal design power (TDP), ranging from 17W to 37W, compared to the higher power requirements of Arrow Lake-H, expected to range from 28W to 115W. Additionally, Lunar Lake’s architectural refinements and better drivers give it an edge in gaming performance beyond synthetic benchmarks.

Intel is expected to release the Core Ultra 200H/U/HX processors at CES 2025, with rumors indicating that the next-generation Battlemage GPU architecture could debut soon, possibly ahead of AMD’s RDNA 4 and NVIDIA’s Blackwell.