CES 2025 has begun and Intel is the first of three major players in the PC hardware space to reveal what it’s been cooking up in the labs. This year, the company is focussing squarely on the mobile space, with new Core Ultra 200HX and 200H processors designed to push performance in laptops.
These new Core Ultra 200 processors share the same Arrow Lake architecture as recent desktop models, such as Core Ultra 9 285K. However, the design of HX and H SKUs target markedly different devices and performance targets. Let’s take a closer look at each family.
Core Ultra 200H
| SKU | Cores / Threads | Max. GHz | GPU cores | GPU TOPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Ultra 9 285H | 6P+8E+2LP-E / 16 | 5.4 | 8 | 77 |
| Core Ultra 9 265H | 6P+8E+2LP-E / 16 | 5.3 | 8 | 75 |
| Core Ultra 7 255H | 6P+8E+2LP-E / 16 | 5.1 | 8 | 74 |
| Core Ultra 7 235H | 4P+8E+2LP-E / 14 | 5.0 | 8 | 74 |
| Core Ultra 5 225H | 4P+8E+2LP-E / 14 | 4.9 | 7 | 63 |
First to market in ‘early Q1’, Core Ultra 200H are direct successors to 2023’s 100H Series offerings. However, they’re more closely related to Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) as each processor family uses Intel’s more-advanced ‘Lion Cove’ P-cores and ‘Skymont’ E-cores.
Intel designs Core Ultra 200H for high-performance ultrabooks, marrying its latest CPU core architectures with its most-powerful integrated graphics. Naturally, it also packs an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that offers 11 TOPS of performance in addition to up to 88 TOPS from the CPU and GPU. Suffice to say, these processors should make for powerful AI PCs.
Relative to Core Ultra 100H, Intel is claiming gains north of 15% across the board in terms of CPU and GPU performance. However, real-world uplifts will be difficult to measure given the lack of parity in laptops across generations.
Core Ultra 200HX
Flagships with a literal X factor, Core Ultra 200HX are the highest performance processors Intel has to offer the laptop space. The emphasis here is on core counts and clock speeds to provide the perfect pairing for ‘discrete graphics solutions’. While not confirmed at the time of writing, I’d safely bet that this specifically refers to GeForce RTX 50 Series.
| SKU | Cores / Threads | Max. GHz | GPU cores | NPU TOPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Ultra 9 285HX | 8P+16E / 24 | 5.5 | 4 | 13 |
| Core Ultra 9 275HX | 8P+16E / 24 | 5.4 | 4 | 13 |
| Core Ultra 7 265HX | 8P+12E / 20 | 5.3 | 4 | 13 |
| Core Ultra 7 255HX | 8P+12E / 20 | 5.2 | 4 | 13 |
| Core Ultra 5 245HX | 6P+8E / 14 | 5.1 | 3 | 13 |
| Core Ultra 5 235HX | 6P+8E / 14 | 5.1 | 3 | 13 |
At the head of the pack is Core Ultra 9 285HX, which mirrors its desktop counterpart with 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores sans any hyperthreading. It’ll boost up to an impressive 5.5GHz and thankfully won’t need unforgivable amounts of power to hit said clock speed, featuring a base TDP of 55W, rising to a 160W ceiling.
Exciting as it is to see Intel debut new high-end silicon in the space following Raptor Lake Refresh (14th Gen Core Series), these processors sadly won’t be with us until ‘later’ in Q1 at the earliest. Of course, the first appearance and subsequent prevalence of Core Ultra 200HX is contingent on laptop manufacturers more than anything else. Still, I’m keen to see how well Intel can push the performance envelope and reward my patience.
2025 should hopefully prove a far more exciting year for laptops, with AMD likely set to announce new Ryzen processors with Zen 5 cores. Be sure to follow Club386 on Google News to make sure you don’t miss anything from CES 2025 and our subsequent reviews of these processors.
