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Intel Core i7-1280P

Intel i7-1280P

The Intel Core i7-1280P is the flagship Alder Lake-P CPU, which is to say, an expensive 28 W part meant for use in ultra-light (yet actively cooled) laptops. This CPU was announced in early 2022 and it has 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) mated to 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores are Hyper-Threading-enabled for whopping 20 threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock speeds range from 1.8 GHz to 4.8 GHz for the performance cluster and 1.3 GHz to 3.6 GHz for the efficiency cluster. This is the only hexa-core 28 W Alder Lake CPU as of February 2022, trumping what the more affordable i7-1270P and i7-1260P have in store. Full vPro feature set is supported by this Core i7 ("Enterprise" tier, allowing for remote device management).

Architecture

The i7 is a continuation of Intel's efforts to use the ARM-developed big.LITTLE technology for its own benefit. A single "little" Alder Lake core is supposed to be just as fast as a Skylake core (as found in the venerable Core i7-6700HQ among other options) which is six years old at this point. All of a Core i7-1280P's CPU cores enjoy access to 24 MB of L3 cache. The integrated memory controller supports up to 64 GB of LPDDR5-5200, DDR5-4800, LPDDR4x-4267 or DDR4-3200 RAM. Just like the other 12th Gen Intel Core processors, Core i7-1280P comes with Thread Director which is a new functionality designed to help Windows 11 decide which cores to use for what workload for best performance and efficiency possible. Hardware acceleration of AI algorithms is supported via GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). PCI-Express 5.0 support has not found its way into Alder Lake P processors, so users will have to be content with PCI-Express 4.0 for the time being. Four PCI-Express 4 lanes allow for a read/write rate of up to 7.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

Please note this is not a user-replaceable CPU. It gets soldered permanently on to the motherboard (BGA1744 socket interface).

Performance

The average 1280P in our database delivers multi-thread benchmarks scores that are most similar to those of the Ryzen 9 5900HS, Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS and also the Core i9-11980HK.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 80 W, the MSI Summit E16 Flip A12UDT-031 is among the fastest laptops built around the 1280P that we know of. It can be roughly 60% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Graphics

The built-in graphics adapter in the form of the 96 EU Iris Xe running at up to 1.45 GHz has seen no change from what was built into the 11th Gen Tiger Lake-UP3 processors, like a i7-1165G7, which is hardly a downside as this iGPU is loaded with modern features such as AV1 video decoding capability and SUHD 4320p monitor support. An Iris Xe Graphics G7 will let you use up to 4 monitors simultaneously, provided the laptop has the ports required.

The graphics adapter will let you play most games at 1080p / Medium settings to be very close to NVIDIA's MX350.

That being said, the Xe's gaming performance is bound to be tied to how high the Power Limits and how competent the cooling solution of a laptop are. Fast RAM is a prerequisite for decent performance as well (the Iris Xe has to make do with no dedicated video memory).

Last but not the least, we discovered that the GPU utilization when playing YouTube UHD 2160p60 videos is higher than it was with Tiger Lake chips.

Power consumption

The i7's base power consumption (also known as the default TDP value or the PL1) is 28 W, with 64 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption (also known as the PL2). The "Minimum Assured" power consumption is fairly high at 20 watts. All in all, an active cooling solution is a must for a CPU like this.

The i7-1280P is built with Intel's fourth-gen 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent, as of late 2022, energy efficiency. This is still a rather power-hungry CPU; a single P-core will happily eat more than 20 W and even ask for more when under heavy load. A couple of higher-end 7 nm U-class AMD Ryzen 5000 chips are noticeably more modest than the i7 while delivering the same or higher performance levels.

CodenameAlder Lake-P
SeriesIntel Alder Lake-P

Series: Alder Lake-P Alder Lake-P

Intel Core i7-1280P « 1.3 - 4.8 GHz14 / 20 cores24 MB L3
Intel Core i7-1270P compare1.6 - 4.8 GHz12 / 16 cores18 MB L3
Intel Core i7-1260P compare1.5 - 4.7 GHz12 / 16 cores18 MB L3
Intel Core i5-1250P compare1.2 - 4.4 GHz12 / 16 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core i5-1240P compare1.2 - 4.4 GHz12 / 16 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core i3-1220P compare1.1 - 4.4 GHz10 / 12 cores12 MB L3
Clock Rate1300 - 4800 MHz
Level 1 Cache1.2 MB
Level 2 Cache11.5 MB
Level 3 Cache24 MB
Number of Cores / Threads14 / 20
Power Consumption (TDP = Thermal Design Power)28 Watt
Manufacturing Technology10 nm
Max. Temperature100 °C
SocketBGA1744
FeaturesDDR4-3200/LPDDR4x-4266/DDR5-4800/LPDDR5-5200 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, Rem. Platf. Erase, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA
GPUIntel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs ( - 1450 MHz)
64 Bit64 Bit support
Architecturex86
Announcement Date01/04/2022
Product Link (external)ark.intel.com

Benchmarks

Performance Rating - CB R15 + R20 + 7-Zip + X265 + Blender + 3DM11 CPU
36.1 pt (60%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Multi Core
min: 8632     avg: 11685     median: 11666 (11%)     max: 14803 Points
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Single Core
min: 1609     avg: 1670     median: 1651 (70%)     max: 1787 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core)
min: 615     avg: 642     median: 629 (70%)     max: 701 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core)
min: 3283     avg: 4627     median: 4677.5 (11%)     max: 5415 Points
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
min: 1905     avg: 2120     median: 2112 (13%)     max: 2332 Points
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Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64 Bit
min: 203     avg: 237.3     median: 238 (67%)     max: 258 Points
wPrime 1.55 - wPrime 1.55 1024m *
1165 s (5%)
7-Zip 18.03 - 7-Zip 18.03 Multi Thread 4 runs
min: 45292     avg: 49730     median: 49572 (28%)     max: 53710 MIPS
7-Zip 18.03 - 7-Zip 18.03 Single Thread 4 runs
min: 4995     avg: 5488     median: 5540 (65%)     max: 5874 MIPS
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2 - HWBOT x265 4k Preset
min: 9.62     avg: 12.5     median: 12.9 (23%)     max: 14.5 fps
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Blender - Blender 3.3 Classroom CPU *
min: 490     avg: 566     median: 537 (7%)     max: 741 Seconds
Blender - Blender 2.79 BMW27 CPU *
min: 259     avg: 281.7     median: 285 (2%)     max: 309 Seconds
R Benchmark 2.5 - R Benchmark 2.5 *
min: 0.4505     avg: 0.5     median: 0.5 (10%)     max: 0.512 sec
Super Pi Mod 1.5 XS 32M - Super Pi mod 1.5 XS 32M *
366 s (2%)
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Physics
min: 11415     avg: 15372     median: 15372.5 (39%)     max: 18478 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Cloud Gate Physics
min: 7264     avg: 12588     median: 12154 (31%)     max: 17047 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Fire Strike Standard Physics
min: 15398     avg: 19695     median: 19017.5 (34%)     max: 25756 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Time Spy CPU
min: 6205     avg: 8459     median: 7672.5 (32%)     max: 12031 Points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.5 64 Bit Single-Core
min: 1571     avg: 1701     median: 1746 (68%)     max: 1802 points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.5 64 Bit Multi-Core
min: 9623     avg: 10839     median: 11191 (20%)     max: 11811 points
Geekbench 5.0 - Geekbench 5.0 64 Bit Single-Core
min: 1685     avg: 1706     median: 1694 (7%)     max: 1738 points
Geekbench 5.0 - Geekbench 5.0 64 Bit Multi-Core
min: 9886     avg: 10561     median: 10537 (33%)     max: 11260 points
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
min: 526     avg: 563     median: 538 (1%)     max: 683 ms
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
min: 83104     avg: 84579     median: 84578.5 (71%)     max: 86053 Points
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
min: 232     avg: 247.2     median: 248.5 (70%)     max: 257 Points
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
min: 203     avg: 271.3     median: 286 (52%)     max: 290 Points
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
min: 1652     avg: 1704     median: 1690 (65%)     max: 1773 Points
Power Consumption - Prime95 Power Consumption - external Monitor *
min: 40.8     avg: 56.1     median: 54.3 (9%)     max: 73.4 Watt
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Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Consumption - external Monitor *
min: 45.3     avg: 65.3     median: 65.1 (12%)     max: 90.7 Watt
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Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
min: 3.08     avg: 8.5     median: 8.7 (6%)     max: 13.6 Watt
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Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
min: 4.07     avg: 10.5     median: 10.2 (11%)     max: 17.4 Watt
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Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Efficiency - external Monitor
min: 25.7     avg: 32.6     median: 30.3 (23%)     max: 46.8 Points per Watt