Intel’s gaming laptop computer chip choice could be about to get very complicated for purchasers. That’s as a result of the corporate has simply introduced a number of new Intel Core 200H chips through its web site, and their specs and up to date leaks recommend they use the corporate’s getting older Raptor Lake structure, slightly than its newest Arrow Lake designs.
If so, the reasoning would appear to be Intel addressing the relative lack of gaming efficiency from its Arrow Lake-based gaming CPUs. Loads of the very best gaming laptop computer designs are switching to Arrow Lake, however for top-tier efficiency, its Raptor Lake designs are nonetheless sooner.
That is nonetheless hypothesis for now, however the proof is mounting. Just a few months again, an Intel Core 250H leak confirmed that this new chip was showing as utilizing the Raptor Lake structure when examined utilizing the Geekbench benchmarking software program. Again then, although, that was nonetheless an as-yet unofficial chip.
Now, Intel has revealed a complete stack of recent Intel Core 200H chips, and though the itemizing on Intel’s web site – which was noticed by X (previously Twitter) account @momomo_us – doesn’t explicitly say they’re Raptor Lake CPUs, a take a look at their specs strongly hints that that is the case.
That’s as a result of every chip is proven as having differing numbers of CPU cores to the variety of processing threads. With Arrow Lake having switched to an structure the place every core can solely course of one thread directly, this mismatch suggests a return to Raptor Lake, as that structure allowed for 2 threads to be processed directly on every of the P-Cores.
So, as an illustration, the flagship product of this new vary seems to be the Intel Core 9 270H, with this chip is listed as working at as much as 5.8GHz and having a complete of 14 cores. That complete contains six efficiency cores (P-Cores) and eight effectivity cores (E-Cores). The variety of threads it could actually handle directly is then listed as 20, which might correspond with the P-Cores dealing with two threads every (12 complete) and the E-Cores dealing with eight threads, for a mixed complete of 20.
Fortunately, whereas this potential renaming of previous chips underneath a brand new type to match present CPU names undoubtedly has the potential to be complicated, Intel has left us one clear indicator to distinguish these chips. The place its fashionable Arrow Lake chips – with their devoted AI cores, unbelievable energy effectivity, and extra highly effective built-in graphics – come underneath the Intel Core Extremely 200 banner, these new chips are merely Intel Core 200 chips.
Intel’s Raptor Lake structure has been the idea of a variety of Intel CPUs since 2022, with the corporate’s thirteenth and 14th-gen Intel Core i-series CPUs being primarily based on it. Whereas highly effective, and possessing the flexibility to crank as much as very excessive clock speeds, these chips had been infamous for being not notably energy environment friendly, with desktop variants drawing lots of of watts of energy at instances.
What’s extra, the structure notably took a bashing when it emerged that some 14th-generation desktop CPUs may harm themselves from working at too excessive a voltage. It took Intel months to acknowledge after which repair the problem, with it lastly issuing a 14th gen CPU repair a few months in the past. We will solely assume that Intel is assured these issues are firmly behind it with these new chips.
Exactly what these new Intel Core 200 laptop computer CPUs will carry when it comes to real-world efficiency and options, we will little doubt discover out quickly. Largely, although, we might count on them to carry out equally to current-gen Intel Core i-series laptops, as we examined in our Razer Blade 16 overview and our MSI Titan 18 HX overview, with these chips nonetheless dominating the highest tier of gaming laptop computer efficiency. For now, you possibly can learn extra about what Intel’s newest very CPU structure has dropped at the desk in our Arrow Lake information.
