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Intel Core Ultra 5 135U vs Intel Core Ultra 5 125U vs Intel Core Ultra 7 155U

Intel Core Ultra 5 135U

► remove from comparison Intel Ultra 5 135U

The Intel Core Ultra 5 135U is mid-range Meteor Lake chip that debuted in December 2023. This 1st Gen Core Ultra processor has come to replace 13th generation Core processors; it has 12 cores and 14 threads at its disposal. Its Performance cores, of which there are 2, are HT-enabled and run at up to 4.4 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 4-core Intel Arc Graphics, just out of the oven, serves as the integrated graphics adapter - this runs at up to 1.90 GHz - and there is a bevy of other brand-new technologies on offer as well such as the integrated AI Boost NPU with two Gen 3 engines for hardware AI workload acceleration.

Architecture & Features

Meteor Lake is a case of throwing everything at AMD (including the kitchen sink, yes) and seeing what sticks. With this product family, Intel intends to deliver higher CPU performance, higher GPU performance, higher hardware AI workload acceleration rates and longer battery life than what Raptor Lake chips were capable of. For those counting, that's four birds to kill with a single stone.

This generation of Intel Core processors features Redwood architecture P-cores and Crestwood 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 2.1 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 135U comes with 12 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 decent number of PCIe 4 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds up to 7.8 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). vPro Enterprise and business-centric features such as the Remote Platform Erase are onboard as well. Naturally, the 135U also 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 135U 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 135U will be like, as of December 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be somewhat faster than the Core i7-1355U (Raptor Lake, 10 cores, 12 threads, up to 5.0 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 4-core Arc Graphics runs at up to 1.90 GHz. We expect the iGPU to be just slightly slower than the aging 96 EU Iris Xe meaning you will be able to play most games at 1080p as long as most settings are set to Low.

A proper DX12 Ultimate graphics adapter, the Arc Graphics 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.

Power consumption

This Core Ultra 5 series processor has a Base power consumption of 15 W, with 57 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. An active cooling solution is a must for a system powered by this chip.

The 135U is comprised of several 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 Ultra 5 125U

► remove from comparison Intel Ultra 5 125U

The Intel Core Ultra 5 125U is a lower mid-range Meteor Lake chip that debuted in December 2023. This 1st Gen Core Ultra processor has come to replace 13th generation Core processors; it has 12 cores (2 + 8 + 2) and 14 threads at its disposal. Its Performance cores, of which there are 2, are HT-enabled and run at up to 4.3 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 4-core Intel Arc Graphics, just out of the oven, serves as the integrated graphics adapter - this runs at up to 1.85 GHz - and there is a bevy of other brand-new technologies on offer as well, such as the integrated AI Boost NPU with two Gen 3 engines for hardware AI workload acceleration.

Architecture & Features

Meteor Lake is a case of throwing everything at AMD (including the kitchen sink, yes) and seeing what sticks. With this product family, Intel intends to deliver higher CPU performance, higher GPU performance, higher hardware AI workload acceleration rates and longer battery life than what Raptor Lake chips were capable of. For those counting, that's four birds to kill with a single stone.

This generation of Intel Core processors features Redwood architecture P-cores and Crestwood 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 2.1 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 125U comes with 12 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 decent number of PCIe 4 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds up to 7.8 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 125U 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 125U 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 125U will be like, as of December 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be just a bit faster than the Core i7-1355U (Raptor Lake, 10 cores, 12 threads, up to 5.0 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 4-core Arc Graphics runs at up to 1.85 GHz. We expect the iGPU to be a little slower than the aging 96 EU Iris Xe meaning you will be able to play most games at 1080p with most settings set to Low.

A proper DX12 Ultimate graphics adapter, the Arc Graphics 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.

Power consumption

This Core Ultra 5 series processor has a Base power consumption of 15 W, with 57 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. An active cooling solution is a must for a system powered by this chip.

The 125U is comprised of several 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 Ultra 7 155U

► remove from comparison Intel Ultra 7 155U

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155U is a mid-range Meteor Lake chip that debuted in December 2023. This 1st Gen Core Ultra processor has come to replace 13th generation Core processors; it has 12 cores (2 + 8 + 2) and 14 threads at its disposal. Its Performance cores, of which there are 2, are HT-enabled and run at up to 4.8 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 3.8 GHz. The 4-core Intel Arc Graphics, just out of the oven, serves as the integrated graphics adapter - this runs at up to 1.95 GHz - and there is a bevy of other brand-new technologies on offer as well such as the integrated AI Boost NPU with two Gen 3 engines for hardware AI workload acceleration.

Architecture & Features

Meteor Lake is a case of throwing everything at AMD (including the kitchen sink, yes) and seeing what sticks. With this product family, Intel intends to deliver higher CPU performance, higher GPU performance, higher hardware AI workload acceleration rates and longer battery life than what Raptor Lake chips were capable of. For those counting, that's four birds to kill with a single stone.

This generation of Intel Core processors features Redwood architecture P-cores and Crestwood 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 2.1 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 155U comes with 12 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 decent number of PCIe 4 lanes for NVMe SSD speeds up to 7.8 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 155U 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 155U 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 155U will be like, as of December 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be almost as fast as the Core i7-1340P (Raptor Lake, 12 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.6 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 4-core Arc Graphics runs at up to 1.95 GHz. We expect the iGPU to be about as fast as the aging 96 EU Iris Xe meaning it's good enough for most games, as long as one sticks to 1080p and mostly low quality settings.

A proper DX12 Ultimate graphics adapter, the Arc Graphics 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.

Power consumption

This Core Ultra 7 series processor has a Base power consumption of 15 W, with 57 W being its maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption. An active cooling solution is a must for a system powered by this chip.

The 155U is comprised of several 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.

ModelIntel Core Ultra 5 135UIntel Core Ultra 5 125UIntel Core Ultra 7 155U
SeriesIntel Intel Meteor Lake-UIntel Intel Meteor Lake-UIntel Intel Meteor Lake-U
CodenameMeteor Lake-PMeteor Lake-PMeteor Lake-P
Series: Intel Meteor Lake-U Meteor Lake-P
Intel Core Ultra 7 165U3.8 - 4.9 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 7 155U3.8 - 4.8 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 135U « 3.6 - 4.4 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U3.6 - 4.3 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 7 165U3.8 - 4.9 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 7 155U3.8 - 4.8 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 135U3.6 - 4.4 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U « 3.6 - 4.3 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 7 165U3.8 - 4.9 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 7 155U « 3.8 - 4.8 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 135U3.6 - 4.4 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U3.6 - 4.3 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Clock3600 - 4400 MHz3600 - 4300 MHz3800 - 4800 MHz
L3 Cache12 MB12 MB12 MB
Cores / Threads12 / 14
2 x 4.4 GHz Intel Redwood Cove P-Core
8 x 3.6 GHz Intel Crestmont E-Core
2 x 2.1 GHz Intel Crestmont E-Core
12 / 14
2 x 4.3 GHz Intel Redwood Cove P-Core
8 x 3.6 GHz Intel Crestmont E-Core
2 x 2.1 GHz Intel Crestmont E-Core
12 / 14
2 x 4.8 GHz Intel Redwood Cove P-Core
8 x 3.8 GHz Intel Crestmont E-Core
2 x 2.1 GHz Intel Crestmont E-Core
TDP15 Watt15 Watt15 Watt
Technology7 nm7 nm7 nm
max. Temp.110 °C110 °C110 °C
FeaturesDDR5-5600/LPDDR5-7467/LPDDR5x-7467 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, AI Boost, vPro Enterp., RPE, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNI, FMA3, SHADDR5-5600/LPDDR5-7467/LPDDR5x-7467 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, AI Boost, vPro Essen., MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNI, FMA3, SHADDR5-5600/LPDDR5-7467/LPDDR5x-7467 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, AI Boost, vPro Essen., MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNI, FMA3, SHA
iGPUIntel Graphics 4-Cores iGPU (Arc) ( - 1900 MHz)Intel Graphics 4-Cores iGPU (Arc) ( - 1850 MHz)Intel Graphics 4-Cores iGPU (Arc) ( - 1950 MHz)
Architecturex86x86x86
Announced
Manufacturerark.intel.comark.intel.comark.intel.com
SocketBGA2049BGA2049

Benchmarks

Performance Rating - CB R15 + R20 + 7-Zip + X265 + Blender + 3DM11 CPU - Ultra 5 125U
36.6 pt (51%)
Performance Rating - CB R15 + R20 + 7-Zip + X265 + Blender + 3DM11 CPU - Ultra 7 155U
37.5 pt (52%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Multi Core
min: 9533     avg: 9554     median: 9553.5 (9%)     max: 9574 Points
9385 Points (9%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Single Core
min: 1548     avg: 1561     median: 1560.5 (66%)     max: 1573 Points
1675 Points (71%)
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core)
min: 592     avg: 599     median: 598.5 (67%)     max: 605 Points
646 Points (72%)
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core)
min: 3720     avg: 3740     median: 3740 (9%)     max: 3760 Points
3613 Points (9%)
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
min: 1657     avg: 1669     median: 1668.5 (11%)     max: 1680 Points
1505 Points (10%)
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64 Bit
min: 226     avg: 227     median: 227 (68%)     max: 228 Points
230 Points (69%)
7-Zip 18.03 - 7-Zip 18.03 Multli Thread 4 runs
min: 39025     avg: 39045     median: 39045 (22%)     max: 39065 MIPS
38645 MIPS (22%)
7-Zip 18.03 - 7-Zip 18.03 Single Thread 4 runs
min: 4492     avg: 4576     median: 4575.5 (55%)     max: 4659 MIPS
4855 MIPS (58%)
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2 - HWBOT x265 4k Preset
min: 10.6     avg: 10.9     median: 10.9 (19%)     max: 11.1 fps
10.7 fps (19%)
Blender - Blender 3.3 Classroom CPU *
min: 638     avg: 643     median: 643 (8%)     max: 648 Seconds
649 Seconds (8%)
Blender - Blender 2.79 BMW27 CPU *
min: 349     avg: 353.5     median: 353.5 (2%)     max: 358 Seconds
353 Seconds (2%)
R Benchmark 2.5 - R Benchmark 2.5 *
min: 0.526     avg: 0.5     median: 0.5 (11%)     max: 0.533 sec
0.5 sec (11%)
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Physics
min: 13521     avg: 13970     median: 13970 (38%)     max: 14419 Points
13841 Points (37%)
3DMark - 3DMark Cloud Gate Physics
min: 11380     avg: 12176     median: 12176 (31%)     max: 12972 Points
12460 Points (32%)
3DMark - 3DMark Fire Strike Standard Physics
min: 19601     avg: 19637     median: 19636.5 (35%)     max: 19672 Points
19839 Points (35%)
3DMark - 3DMark Time Spy CPU
min: 6454     avg: 6608     median: 6607.5 (28%)     max: 6761 Points
6323 Points (27%)
Geekbench 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Single-Core
min: 2148     avg: 2156     median: 2155.5 (58%)     max: 2163 Points
2324 Points (63%)
Geekbench 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Multi-Core
min: 8487     avg: 9044     median: 9044 (36%)     max: 9601 Points
9448 Points (37%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Single-Core
min: 1560     avg: 1574     median: 1573.5 (66%)     max: 1587 Points
1691 Points (71%)
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
min: 7909     avg: 8132     median: 8132 (15%)     max: 8355 Points
8409 Points (15%)
Geekbench 5.0 - Geekbench 5.0 64 Bit Single-Core
1564 Points (7%)
Geekbench 5.0 - Geekbench 5.0 64 Bit Multi-Core
7820 Points (25%)
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
min: 581     avg: 584     median: 584 (1%)     max: 587 ms
548 ms (1%)
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
min: 227     avg: 229     median: 229 (66%)     max: 231 Points
250 Points (72%)
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
min: 237     avg: 244     median: 244 (51%)     max: 251 Points
272 Points (57%)
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
min: 1363     avg: 1506     median: 1505.5 (58%)     max: 1648 Points
1467 Points (56%)
Power Consumption - Prime95 Power Consumption - external Monitor *
43.9 Watt (8%)
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Consumption - external Monitor *
58 Watt (11%)
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
3.3 Watt (2%)
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
4.9 Watt (5%)
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Efficiency - external Monitor
29 Points per Watt (22%)

Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 5 125U → 0% n=

Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 7 155U → 0% n=

- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card
* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation

v1.26
log 20. 01:32:19

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#1 checking url part for id 16919 +0s ... 0s

#2 checking url part for id 16915 +0s ... 0s

#3 not redirecting to Ajax server +0s ... 0s

#4 did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old! Created at Sun, 19 May 2024 05:35:32 +0200 +0.001s ... 0.001s

#5 composed specs +0.041s ... 0.041s

#6 did output specs +0s ... 0.042s

#7 getting avg benchmarks for device 16917 +0.003s ... 0.045s

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#9 getting avg benchmarks for device 16919 +0.021s ... 0.066s

#10 got single benchmarks 16919 +0.014s ... 0.08s

#11 getting avg benchmarks for device 16915 +0.016s ... 0.096s

#12 got single benchmarks 16915 +0.009s ... 0.106s

#13 got avg benchmarks for devices +0s ... 0.106s

#14 min, max, avg, median took s +0.203s ... 0.309s

#15 return log +0s ... 0.309s

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Redaktion, 2017-09- 8 (Update: 2023-07- 1)