Intel Core Ultra 5 125H vs Intel Core i9-14900K vs Intel Core Ultra 7 155H

Intel Core Ultra 5 125H

The Intel Core Ultra 5 125H is a mid-range Meteor Lake family chip that debuted in December 2023. This 1st Gen Core Ultra processor has come to replace 13th generation Core chips; it has 14 cores (4 + 8 + 2) and 18 threads at its disposal. Its Performance cores, of which there are 4, are HT-enabled and run at up to 4.5 GHz while its Efficient cores, of which there are 10 (8 main cores plus 2 extra ones found in the Low Power Island), run at up to 3.6 GHz. The 7-core Arc GPU, just out of the oven, serves as the integrated graphics adapter - this runs at up to 2.20 GHz - and there is a bevy of other brand-new technologies on offer as well, including the integrated AI Boost NPU with two Gen 3 engines for hardware AI workload acceleration.

Architecture and Features

With Meteor Lake, Intel intends to deliver higher CPU performance, higher GPU performance and at the same time, longer battery life than what Raptor Lake chips were capable of. The company also wants a large piece of the AI cake and is working with Microsoft and other partners to make that happen. As a result, Windows Defender is now AI-enabled, meaning it can use the Intel NPU to take some of the load off the main CPU cores. We also get this new Intel Device Discovery technology that is designed to give us a better hardware-based remote laptop management than ever before; and, to make things even better, Intel now offers a dedicated Arc Pro graphics driver for workstations.

This generation of Intel Core processors features Redwood architecture P-cores and Crestmont architecture E-cores. Both come with slight architectural improvements over Raptor Cove and Gracemont respectively for slightly higher performance-per-clock figures; the interesting thing is that of the 10 E-cores, two are actually a separate cluster located on what Intel calls a "Low Power Island". Essentially, the latter is an SoC within an SoC that can stay active while most other parts of the chip are temporarily switched off to save power. The low-power E-cores run at up to 2.5 GHz. Intel hopes this approach will let it deliver unprecedentedly low power consumption figures when under low load, boosting battery life of laptops and tablets powered by Meteor Lake.

To build its Meteor Lake processors, Intel uses the Foveros technology (stacking several chips on top of each other). This is a cost-cutting measure more than anything else, as manufacturing several small dies on several different processes is so much cheaper than making a huge single die and hoping that there are no defects in it that will require disabling some parts of it.

Elsewhere, the Core Ultra 5 125H comes with 18 MB of L3 cache which is a significant reduction compared to the 24 MB that the 155H, the 165H and the 185H have. The processor has a very healthy number of PCIe 5 and PCIe 4 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds up to 15.7 GB/s; it supports RAM running at up to 7467 MHz (DDR5-5600, LPDDR5-7467, LPDDR5x-7467, to be specific - which is about as good as what 8040 series Ryzen chips have). Naturally, the 125H features built-in Thunderbolt 4 support and Intel CNVi Wi-Fi support. It is also worth mentioning that Intel chose to keep native SATA III support that AMD had removed from its Ryzen processors quite a while ago.

The 125H is compatible with 64-bit Windows 10, 64-bit Windows 11 and with many Linux distros.

Performance

While we have no way of knowing what the 125H will be like, as of December 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be slightly slower than the Ryzen 7 7735HS (Zen 3 Plus, 8 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.75 GHz), as far as multi-thread performance is concerned.

Either way, real-world performance of the chip may vary significantly depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of the system is.

Graphics

The 7-core Arc GPU running at up to 2.20 GHz is set to overshadow the Radeon 760M; just like the 8-core Arc GPU, this graphics adapter is set to be miles ahead of the aging Xe-series integrated GPUs. As long as one chooses to take Intel's word for it, that is.

A proper DX12 Ultimate graphics adapter, the Arc is no stranger to ray tracing and other modern technologies including AI frame generation (XeSS). It will let you connect up to four SUHD 4320p monitors and it will both HW-encode and HW-encode the most widely used video codecs including AVC, HEVC and AV1 in a fast and efficient manner.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of your system is, how fast the RAM of your system is. The latter is really important; Intel stresses that for the Arc to deliver the best results possible, multi-channel RAM configuration is a must.

Power consumption

The Base power consumption, in the case of the 125H, is 28 W while its maximum Turbo power consumption is supposed to be within 115 W. A powerful cooling solution is a must for any system powered by this chip.

This Core Ultra 5 series processor is comprised of five small chips ("tiles") that are connected using Intel's Foveros technology. The tile containing main CPU cores is produced on the fairly modern 7 nm Intel process marketed as Intel 4 while most other tiles (the iGPU, the I/O die, ...) are built with TSMC's N5 and N6 processes. The base tile is built with the old Intel 22FFL process.

Intel Core i9-14900K

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a high-end processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, similar to the Intel Core i9-13900K last year. The base clock is 3.2 GHz and can reach up to 6 GHz under optimal conditions. The total of 32 threads are still divided into 8 P and 16 E cores. The 8 performance cores (P-cores) also offer hyperthreading, which means that a total of 32 threads can be processed simultaneously in conjunction with the 16 energy-efficient E-cores. As before, the K models continue to offer a freely selectable multiplier, which simplifies overclocking. The Intel Core i9-14900K uses the same CPU socket (LGA 1700) as the Intel Core i9-13900K. This means you don't necessarily need a new motherboard, as the 600 series chipsets support the new processors after a BIOS update. There is also still the option of using DDR4 for the RAM.

Performance

Compared to the Intel Core i9-13900K, the Core i9-14900K still offers 8 P-cores, which are relieved by 16 additional E-cores for demanding applications and thus ensure very high multi-thread performance. In comparison, however, the Intel Core i9-14900K can only gain a slight lead. The e-cores primarily take care of background applications. The hybrid architecture relies on the Intel Thread Director, which is responsible for the correct allocation of tasks. Meanwhile, the IPC could only be increased slightly. As an innovation with the Intel Core i9-14900K, the manufacturer is increasingly relying on AI, which is also used for overclocking. With one click in the Intel Extreme Utility, the tool checks the entire system and makes the necessary settings.

Graphics unit

Like the Intel Core i9-13900K, the Intel Core i9-14900K offers an integrated graphics unit. The Intel Iris Xe architecture continues to serve as the basis. In terms of performance, however, nothing has changed with the Intel UHD Graphics 770.

Power consumption

The Intel Core i9-14900K is specified with a TDP of 125 watts, which corresponds to the PL1 value. In Boost mode, the processor's performance can increase to up to 253 watts (PL2). However, this requires very good cooling. Compared to the Intel Core i9-13900K, the specified power consumption does not increase if the limits are adhered to. The situation is different if the limits are deactivated. As this value depends on the overall system, we cannot make an exact statement on this.

Intel Core Ultra 7 155H

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H is a high-end laptop processor of the Meteor Lake series that has 16 cores (6 + 8 + 2) and 22 threads at its disposal. This 1st Gen Core Ultra chip has come to replace 13th generation Core chips; its 16 cores are comprised of 6 HT-enabled Performance cores running at up to 4.8 GHz and 10 Efficient cores (8 main cores plus 2 extra ones found in the Low Power Island) running at up to 3.8 GHz.

The 8-core Arc GPU, just out of the oven, serves as the integrated graphics adapter - this runs at up to 2.30 GHz - and there is a bevy of other brand-new technologies on offer as well, including the integrated AI Boost NPU with two Gen 3 engines for hardware AI workload acceleration.

Architecture and Features

With Meteor Lake, Intel intends to deliver higher CPU performance, higher GPU performance and at the same time, longer battery life than what Raptor Lake chips were capable of. The company also wants a large piece of the AI cake and is working with Microsoft and other partners to make that happen. As a result, Windows Defender is now AI-enabled, meaning it can use the Intel NPU to take some of the load off the main CPU cores. We also get this new Intel Device Discovery technology that is designed to give us a better hardware-based remote laptop management than ever before; and, to make things even better, Intel now offers a dedicated Arc Pro graphics driver for workstations.

This generation of Intel Core processors features Redwood architecture P-cores and Crestmont architecture E-cores. Both come with slight architectural improvements over Raptor Cove and Gracemont respectively for slightly higher performance-per-clock figures; the interesting thing is that of the 10 E-cores, two are actually a separate cluster located on what Intel calls a "Low Power Island". Essentially, the latter is an SoC within an SoC that can stay active while most other parts of the chip are temporarily switched off to save power. The low-power E-cores run at up to 2.5 GHz. Intel hopes this approach will let it deliver unprecedentedly low power consumption figures when under low load, boosting battery life of laptops and tablets powered by Meteor Lake.

To build its Meteor Lake processors, Intel uses the Foveros technology (stacking several chips on top of each other). This is a cost-cutting measure more than anything else, as manufacturing several small dies on several different processes is so much cheaper than making a huge single die and hoping that there are no defects in it that will require disabling some parts of it.

Elsewhere, the Core Ultra 7 155H comes with 24 MB of L3 cache and a very healthy number of PCIe 5 and PCIe 4 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds up to 15.7 GB/s. It supports RAM running at up to 7467 MHz (DDR5-5600, LPDDR5-7467, LPDDR5x-7467, to be specific - which is about as good as what 8040 series Ryzen chips have). Naturally, the chip features built-in Thunderbolt 4 support and Intel CNVi Wi-Fi support; fascinatingly enough, Intel chose to keep native SATA III support that AMD had removed from its Ryzen processors quite a while ago.

The 155H is compatible with 64-bit Windows 10, 64-bit Windows 11 and with many Linux distros.

Performance

If one chooses to trust the official performance data published by Intel, then the 155H is about as fast as the Ryzen 9 6900HX (Zen 3 Plus, 8 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.9 GHz), as far as multi-thread performance is concerned. This isn't a ground-breaking result but let's just wait for our in-house testing results instead of jumping to conclusions.

Either way, real-world performance of the chip may vary significantly depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of the system is.

Graphics

The 8-core Arc GPU running at up to 2.30 GHz is slated to be a proper alternative to the mighty Radeon 780M. The thing is almost as fast as the GTX 1650 (Laptop) and the RTX 2050 (Laptop) to represent some seriously solid performance gains over aging Xe-series integrated GPUs. If one chooses to take Intel's word for it, that is.

A proper DX12 Ultimate graphics adapter, the Arc is no stranger to ray tracing and other modern technologies including AI frame generation (XeSS). It will let you connect up to four SUHD 4320p monitors and it will both HW-encode and HW-encode the most widely used video codecs including AVC, HEVC and AV1 in a fast and efficient manner.

Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are, how competent the cooling solution of your system is, how fast the RAM of your system is. The latter is really important; Intel stresses that for the Arc to deliver the best results possible, multi-channel RAM configuration is a must.

Power consumption

This mighty Core Ultra 7 series processor has a Base power consumption of 28 W, while its Turbo power consumption is not supposed to exceed 115 W. Its Base power consumption is supposed to be around 64 W, however, most laptop makers will probably go for a higher value to get higher clock speeds and thus better performance. Either way, a powerful cooling solution will be needed to sort out this chip's hot temper.

The 155H is comprised of five small chips ("tiles") that are connected using Intel's Foveros technology. The tile containing main CPU cores is produced on the fairly modern 7 nm Intel process marketed as Intel 4 while most other tiles (the iGPU, the I/O die, ...) are built with TSMC's N5 and N6 processes. The base tile is built with the old Intel 22FFL process.