1 week Ago By Anthony Garreffa
Intel's new Core Ultra 7 268V "Lunar Lake" CPU has been tested ahead of laptops hitting the market later this month, with the 8-core, 8-thread CPU tested against AMD's new Strix Point APU and Apple's new M3 processor. Inside, the new Intel Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" CPUs feature new Lion Cove P-Cores and Skymont E-Cores, with either 16GB or 32GB of on-package memory that sits next to the chip itself. In some early testing, we've got some numbers from a Vietnamese YouTuber that has tested a new Dell XPS 13 laptop with the Intel Core Ultra 7 268V processor, 32GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory, and Windows 11 Home.
Cinebench R23 single-threaded performance shows that the new Intel Core Ultra 7 268V "Lunar Lake" processor beating out the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU, and the Apple M3. Interestingly, the Core Ultra 7 268V processor using 15W of power, the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU using 21W of power, while Apple blows them both away with the M3 using just 6W of power. This is about where the efficiency stops for the Core Ultra 7 268V, with its 15W mighty impressive against the Strix Point APU using 21W, but loses in multi-threaded as its just an 8-core, 8-thread CPU while the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 is a 12-core, 24-thread CPU that has oodles more threads than the 268V chip.
Intel has promised a 50% upgraded in gaming performance with its new Xe2 "Battlemage" GPU inside of the new Lunar Lake processors, where in a 3DMark TimeSpy run we see a graphics score of 3715 points, beating out the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU with 3526 points, an 8-core Arc GPU inside of an Intel Core Ultra 9 series "Meteor Lake" CPU with 3238 points, and AMD's handheld-focused Ryzen Z1 Extreme with 3017 points. Xe2 is shaping up beautifully here. Great efficiency is one thing, but not when it kills your product: case in point is the new Dell XPS 13 with the Intel Core Ultra 7 268V "Lunar Lake" CPU which only works on 17W mode, compared to the ASUS Vivobook S14 laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU that bumps up to 55W.
In gaming, the reviewer tested Far Cry 6 which was running at 50FPS+ on the Strix Point APU, while the 268V "Lunar Lake" CPU was only pushing mid-30FPS. Black Myth: Wukong is another story, with the Strix Point APU pushing out 100FPS+ while the Xe2-based Lunar Lake CPU was only hitting 50FPS or so. Lower power but still manageable performance (30FPS+) is great for handhelds, where Intel's new Core Ultra 200 series "Lunar Lake" CPUs will appear in new gaming handhelds like MSI's upcoming Claw 8, which is powered by a Lunar Lake processor.
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