CES 2025 | Intel's new sweet spot CPU: Arrow Lake H goes head-to-head with AMD Strix Point
Intel's new Core Ultra 200 lineup offers plenty of variety in CPU designs, which can deliver very different user experiences. Lunar Lake, aka Core Ultra 200V, delivers great efficiency, a strong iGPU performance and long battery life, but its multithreaded CPU performance is subpar. The just announced Intel Arrow Lake HX, aka Core Ultra 200HX, will be a strong performer, but it is not well suited for a low power consumption and mobility.
The sweet spot in the middle is occupied by the new Intel Arrow Lake H lineup. Core Ultra 200H, as it will be officially known from now on, is supposed to deliver both good mobility and good performance, offering more flexibility than the CPUs at the extreme end of Intel's lineup.
Today, Intel is introducing five new Arrow Lake H CPUs, all of which will appear in laptops during the first quarter of 2025:
- Intel Core Ultra 5 225H, 14 cores (4+8+2), 4.9 GHz (P cores), 18 MB Cache, 7 Xe Cores ARC iGPU
- Intel Core Ultra 5 235H, 14 cores (4+8+2), 5.0 GHz (P cores), 18 MB Cache, 7 Xe Cores ARC iGPU
- Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, 16 cores (6+8+2), 5.1 GHz (P cores), 24 MB Cache, 8 Xe Cores ARC iGPU
- Intel Core Ultra 7 265H, 16 cores (6+8+2), 5.3 GHz (P cores), 24 MB Cache, 8 Xe Cores ARC iGPU
- Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, 16 cores (6+8+2), 5.4 GHz (P cores), 24 MB Cache, 8 Xe Cores ARC iGPU
Intel Core Ultra 200H: Up to 16 cores consume up to 115 W
With 16 cores, Arrow Lake H offers the same core counts as its direct predecessor Intel Meteor Lake H, also known as Core Ultra 100H. However, unlike the 2024 generation chip, Arrow Lake's cores are based on the Lunar Lake core design - Lion Cove P cores and Skymont E cores are now going to power the H series as well. The CPUs them self are not manufactured in Intel's foundry, unlike older Meteor Lake. Instead, they are made at TSMC in their efficient N3 node.
The much better efficiency over the Redwood Core P cores and Crestmont E cores of Meteor Lake, which were made on Intel 4, should make laptops with Arrow Lake H more power efficient and long-lasting. And according to Intel, even the performance should improve, despite the fact that Lion Cove does away with hyperthreading. Intel claims a 15 percent performance uplift over Meteor Lake H, in spite of the lower total thread count (Ultra 9 185H: 22 threads, Ultra 9 285H: 16 threads).
On the side of the GPU, Arrow Lake is less revolutionary, sticking with the Xe cores that were already used in Meteor Lake. However, the GPU now contains new XMX, which Intel claims will improve AI performance for the GPU and also can be beneficial for gaming, too. Like with the GPU, Intel uses the NPU from Meteor Lake, so NPU performance stagnates at 13 TOPS. However, Intel says that the H series chips should still pack a punch when it comes to AI, as the total platform TOPS (which means CPU, GPU and NPU performance combined) reaches 99 TOPS.
As far as TDP level go, the H class chips continue to be optimized for running at 28 W, with the Ultra 9 being the exception, as it is made to run at 45 W. The maximum power consumption of the CPUs is 115 W, but this is something the OEMs can configure - it can also be set at 60 W instead. This again shows the flexibility H series offers over the other Intel CPU series.
New for this generation of Intel H class CPUs is Thunderbolt 5 support. The Arrow Lake H series also supports a single PCIe Gen 5 lane for the first time, enabling PCIe Gen 5 storage.
Source(s)
Intel
