Intel's entry-level Core Ultra 200H processors are equally good when it comes to performance, but superior in thermals in similar scenarios.
Two Processors, Same Laptop, and Similar Results: Core Ultra 5 225H Delivers Competitive Performance to AMD's Krackan Point in Various Benchmarks
The Arrow Lake processors, particularly the desktop ones, proved to be lackluster in gaming against their direct rivals from AMD. The laptop processors, on the other hand, especially the ones with more powerful iGPU, such as the Arrow Lake-H, are doing quite good. The Battlemage architecture powers their integrated graphics, and whether you consider the Arc 140T on the mid-range and higher-end SKUs or the Arc 130T, found on entry-level options such as the Core Ultra 5 225H, delivers decent gaming performance.
Thanks to the higher core count and the hybrid architecture, even an entry-level processor like 225H competes against budget/mid-range chips from AMD, such as the Krackan Point. The processor is now receiving adoption in various laptop models such as the Ideapad Pro 5, which also offers an AMD version, packed with the Ryzen AI 7 350, a fantastic 8-core/16-thread APU based on the Zen 5 architecture. A Chinese tech reviewer, "Geekerwan", published benchmarks of both, comparing both CPUs to each other in synthetic and gaming benchmarks.
In almost every benchmark, the Core Ultra 5 225H came on par with the Ryzen AI 7 350. In some tests, it was slightly faster, but in others, the latter showed slightly superior performance. In Cinebench R23, the 225H shows slight dominance at higher wattages (60-80W), but at lower wattages (10-25W), the Ryzen AI 7 350 is noticeably better. The 225H came out 2.5% faster than the AMD processor, and in gaming, both seem equivalent. Here, the Xe2-based Arc 130T competes against the RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 860M and we have no clear winner if we consider the average of all games.
The 225H does have a slight edge in better thermals as it stayed below 90 degrees Celsius at peak loads in Cinebench R23 testing. The Ryzen AI 7 350H was touching 100 degrees Celsius, generating more heat in the chassis. Nonetheless, both seem to be excellent for budget segment laptops but it would have been interesting to see their multi-core numbers since the Core Ultra 5 225H brings more cores to the table, even though most of them are Efficient cores.
Here we are comparing a 14-core/14-thread processor against an 8-core/16-thread APU from AMD. One has a hybrid architecture but no hyperthreading, and the other brings a combination of 4x Zen 5 and 4x Zen 5c cores, accompanied by SMT. At the end of the day, these are some promising budget chips that will suit mini PCs, budget laptops, and gaming handhelds, but we haven't seen many handheld manufacturers adopting them, except that the Zen 5 APUs are deployed in the form of Ryzen Z2 custom chips.
News Source: @realVictor_M
About the author: Sarfraz Khan is a hardware reporter with a focus on PC components and the builder community. With years of experience writing about PC hardware and laptops, his work has been featured on several reputable technology publications. Sarfraz's hands-on experience is demonstrated through his first-person accounts of using and comparing different hardware configurations, providing practical and relatable insights for everyday users. His technical analysis is respected by peers in the enthusiast community and has been cited by specialized hardware sites such as Germany's Igor's Lab.
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