Intel Core Ultra 7 268V vs Intel Core Ultra 7 256V
Intel Core Ultra 7 268V
► remove from comparison
The Intel Core Ultra 7 268V is a higher-end Lunar Lake family processor. This is an SoC for use in tablets and laptops of the slimmer kind that was unveiled in Autumn 2024. It sports 4 new Skymont E-cores and 4 new Lion Cove P-cores running at up to 3.7 GHz and 5.0 GHz respectively, along with the new Arc 140V iGPU and 32 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 48 TOPS neural engine, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well. A vPro-enabled version of the CPU became available in early 2025.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 7 266V is the amount of on-package, non-replaceable RAM: 32 GB vs 16 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. The new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement over Redwood Cove. For Skymont and Crestwood, the difference is much higher at 68%. Several tweaks and improvements are present here, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. The 268V has a very healthy 12 MB of level 3 cache; elsewhere, it has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 48 TOPS "AI Boost" neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
Intel is predicted to get short of on-package RAM in subsequent CPU generations.
Performance
The 268V should be just a couple of percentage points faster than the 258V for an Core Ultra 7 165U or Core i7-1360P-like multi-thread performance, provided it's running at the default long-term TDP power target which is 17 W.
Generally speaking, the 288V, 268V, 266V, 258V, 256V are faster than the 238V, 236V, 228V and 226V due to the difference in their last-level cache size (8 MB vs 12 MB) as well as clock speeds. However, the difference in performance between the slowest Lunar Lake chip, the 226V, and the fastest chip, the 288V is fairly small at around 10% to 15%. It depends on the TDP figures of the laptops being pitted against each other more than on anything else.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 140V is here to replace the Arc 8 iGPU. Its 8 Xe² architecture "cores" run at up to 2,000 MHz and it also has 8 ray tracing units at its disposal. The adapter is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of popular video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
All 2023 and 2024 games are playable at 1080p on low graphics settings or higher with this iGPU. We got well over 30 fps in Ghost of Tsushima and almost 40 fps in Baldur's Gate 3. This means the Radeon 780M gets left behind while the Radeon 890M reigns supreme.
Power consumption
This 2nd generation Core Ultra processor is supposed to consume 17 W when under long-term workloads. The Intel-recommended short-term power limit for the chip sits at 37 W.
Intel Core Ultra 7 256V
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core Ultra 5 256V is an upper mid-range Lunar Lake family processor. This is an SoC for use in tablets and laptops of the slimmer kind that was unveiled in Autumn 2024. It sports 4 new Skymont E-cores and 4 new Lion Cove P-cores running at up to 3.7 GHz and 4.8 GHz respectively, along with the new Arc 140V iGPU and 16 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 47 TOPS neural engine, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 7 258V is the amount of on-package, non-replaceable RAM: 16 GB vs 32 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. The new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement over Redwood Cove. For Skymont and Crestwood, the difference is much higher at 68%. Several tweaks and improvements are present here, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. The 256V has a very healthy 12 MB of level 3 cache; elsewhere, it has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 47 TOPS "AI Boost" neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
Intel is predicted to get short of on-package RAM in subsequent CPU generations.
Performance
Based on the time we've had with 2 systems powered by the 256V, the chip's multi-thread performance is as good as that of the Core Ultra 7 165U and the Core i7-1360P. Please note that both systems had a higher long-term TDP power target than the Intel-recommended value: 30 W and 32 W vs 17 W.
Generally speaking, the 288V, 268V, 266V, 258V, 256V are faster than the 238V, 236V, 228V and 226V due to the difference in their last-level cache size (8 MB vs 12 MB) as well as clock speeds. However, the difference in performance between the slowest Lunar Lake chip, the 226V, and the fastest chip, the 288V is fairly small at around 10% to 15%. It depends on the TDP figures of the laptops being pitted against each other more than on anything else.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 140V is here to replace the Arc 8 iGPU. Its 8 Xe² architecture "cores" run at up to 1,950 MHz and it also has 8 ray tracing units at its disposal. The adapter is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of popular video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
All 2023 and 2024 games are playable at 1080p on low graphics settings or higher with this iGPU. We got well over 30 fps in Ghost of Tsushima and almost 40 fps in Baldur's Gate 3. This means the Radeon 780M gets left behind while the Radeon 890M reigns supreme.
Power consumption
This 2nd generation Core Ultra processor is supposed to consume 17 W when under long-term workloads. The Intel-recommended short-term power limit for the chip sits at 37 W.
| Model | Intel Core Ultra 7 268V | Intel Core Ultra 7 256V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Lunar Lake | Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Intel Lunar Lake | Intel Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Lunar Lake Lunar Lake |
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| Clock | 2200 - 5000 MHz | 2200 - 4800 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 12 MB | 12 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 4 x 5.0 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.7 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | 8 / 8 4 x 4.8 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.7 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 17 Watt | 17 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP Turbo PL2 | 37 Watt | 37 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 3 nm | 3 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | BGA2833 | BGA2833 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (48 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (47 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Intel Arc Graphics 140V ( - 2000 MHz) | Intel Arc Graphics 140V ( - 1950 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 7 268V → 100% n=4
Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 7 256V → 101% n=4
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
