Lenovo Yoga Book 9 14 Arrow Lake CPU throttling is a bit steeper than we would like

The new Yoga Book 9 14 is now shipping with the latest Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 7 255H CPU in direct contrast to the original Yoga Book 9 13 which only offered Core U-series options. The newer CPU can be up to 2x faster than the Core Ultra 7 155U in the older 13-inch model while the difference can be even greater when it comes to graphics performance.

"Up to" is the keyword, however, as the H-series CPU may be too much for the Yoga Book 9 14 to handle as detailed in our review. When running CineBench R15 xT in a loop, for example, processor performance can drop by as much as 25 percent over time likely due to limited Turbo Boost sustainability or temperature ceilings whereas the older 13-inch Yoga Book 9 would exhibit almost no throttling at all under similar conditions. The Xiaomi RedmiBook Pro 14, which carries the same CPU as the Yoga Book 9 14, would throttle less than our Yoga Book 9 14 as well as shown by the graph below.

The throttling on our Core Ultra 7 255H configuration suggests that the same is very likely to occur on the more expensive Core Ultra 9 285H configuration, too. Interested users should therefore consider skipping the pricier Core Ultra 9 option as the performance delta between the two SKUs is likely to be extremely small. Even so, the Yoga Book 9 14 still handily outperforms its predecessors by wide margins regardless of any throttling.