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Intel Core Ultra 7 155U vs Intel Core Ultra 7 165U

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 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 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.

Intel Core Ultra 7 165U

► remove from comparison Intel Ultra 7 165U

The Intel Core Ultra 7 165U is an upper mid-range Meteor Lake family 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 andrun at up to 4.9 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 2.0 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 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 165U 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 165U 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 165U 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 165U will be like, as of December 2023, it's safe to expect the chip to be almost as fast as the Core i7-1350P (Raptor Lake, 12 cores, 16 threads, up to 4.7 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 2.0 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 at 1080p, provided one is fine with low-to-medium 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 165U 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 7 155UIntel Core Ultra 7 165U
SeriesIntel Intel Meteor Lake-UIntel Intel Meteor Lake-U
CodenameMeteor 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 155U « 3.8 - 4.8 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 135U compare3.6 - 4.4 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U compare3.6 - 4.3 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 7 165U « 3.8 - 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 compare3.6 - 4.4 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Intel Core Ultra 5 125U compare3.6 - 4.3 GHz12 / 14 cores12 MB L3
Clock3800 - 4800 MHz3800 - 4900 MHz
L3 Cache12 MB12 MB
Cores / Threads12 / 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
12 / 14
2 x 4.9 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 Watt
Technology7 nm7 nm
max. Temp.110 °C110 °C
SocketBGA2049
FeaturesDDR5-5600/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 Enterp., RPE, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNI, FMA3, SHA
iGPUIntel Graphics 4-Cores iGPU (Arc) ( - 1950 MHz)Intel Graphics 4-Cores iGPU (Arc) ( - 2000 MHz)
Architecturex86x86
Announced
Manufacturerark.intel.comark.intel.com

Benchmarks

Performance Rating - CB R15 + R20 + 7-Zip + X265 + Blender + 3DM11 CPU - Ultra 7 155U
37.5 pt (52%)
Performance Rating - CB R15 + R20 + 7-Zip + X265 + Blender + 3DM11 CPU - Ultra 7 165U
38.4 pt (53%)
Cinebench 2024 - CB24 CPU Single Core
96 Points (67%)
Cinebench 2024 - CB24 CPU Multi Core
529 Points (10%)
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Multi Core
9385 Points (9%)
min: 10226     avg: 10512     median: 10511.5 (10%)     max: 10797 Points
Cinebench R23 - Cinebench R23 Single Core
1675 Points (71%)
min: 1662     avg: 1686     median: 1685.5 (72%)     max: 1709 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Single Core)
646 Points (72%)
min: 624     avg: 643     median: 642.5 (71%)     max: 661 Points
Cinebench R20 - Cinebench R20 CPU (Multi Core)
3613 Points (9%)
min: 3934     avg: 4055     median: 4055 (10%)     max: 4176 Points
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64 Bit
1505 Points (10%)
min: 1605     avg: 1636     median: 1636 (10%)     max: 1667 Points
Cinebench R15 - Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64 Bit
230 Points (69%)
min: 228     avg: 240     median: 240 (72%)     max: 252 Points
7-Zip 18.03 - 7-Zip 18.03 Multli Thread 4 runs
38645 MIPS (22%)
min: 41133     avg: 42287     median: 42287 (24%)     max: 43441 MIPS
7-Zip 18.03 - 7-Zip 18.03 Single Thread 4 runs
4855 MIPS (58%)
min: 4938     avg: 4949     median: 4949 (59%)     max: 4960 MIPS
HWBOT x265 Benchmark v2.2 - HWBOT x265 4k Preset
10.7 fps (19%)
min: 11.6     avg: 12     median: 12 (21%)     max: 12.3 fps
Blender - Blender 3.3 Classroom CPU *
649 Seconds (8%)
min: 592     avg: 610     median: 610 (8%)     max: 628 Seconds
Blender - Blender 2.79 BMW27 CPU *
353 Seconds (2%)
min: 310     avg: 322.5     median: 322.5 (2%)     max: 335 Seconds
R Benchmark 2.5 - R Benchmark 2.5 *
0.5 sec (11%)
min: 0.4881     avg: 0.5     median: 0.5 (11%)     max: 0.504 sec
3DMark 11 - 3DM11 Performance Physics
13841 Points (37%)
min: 14652     avg: 14861     median: 14860.5 (40%)     max: 15069 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Cloud Gate Physics
12460 Points (32%)
13450 Points (34%)
3DMark - 3DMark Fire Strike Standard Physics
19839 Points (35%)
min: 19519     avg: 19993     median: 19993 (36%)     max: 20467 Points
3DMark - 3DMark Time Spy CPU
6323 Points (27%)
min: 6581     avg: 6916     median: 6915.5 (29%)     max: 7250 Points
Geekbench 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Single-Core
2324 Points (63%)
min: 2290     avg: 2323     median: 2323 (63%)     max: 2356 Points
Geekbench 6.2 - Geekbench 6.2 Multi-Core
9448 Points (37%)
min: 9441     avg: 9693     median: 9692.5 (38%)     max: 9944 Points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Single-Core
1691 Points (71%)
min: 1732     avg: 1734     median: 1733.5 (73%)     max: 1735 Points
Geekbench 5.5 - Geekbench 5.1 - 5.4 64 Bit Multi-Core
8409 Points (15%)
min: 8564     avg: 8642     median: 8641.5 (15%)     max: 8719 Points
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *
548 ms (1%)
min: 521     avg: 542     median: 541.5 (1%)     max: 562 ms
Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score
90596 Points (81%)
WebXPRT 4 - WebXPRT 4 Score
250 Points (72%)
min: 242     avg: 248     median: 248 (71%)     max: 254 Points
WebXPRT 3 - WebXPRT 3 Score
272 Points (57%)
min: 265     avg: 272     median: 272 (57%)     max: 279 Points
CrossMark - CrossMark Overall
1467 Points (56%)
min: 1471     avg: 1494     median: 1493.5 (57%)     max: 1516 Points
Power Consumption - Prime95 Power Consumption - external Monitor *
min: 45.5     avg: 50.8     median: 50.8 (9%)     max: 56.1 Watt
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Consumption - external Monitor *
63.2 Watt (12%)
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption - external Monitor *
min: 3.54     avg: 4.6     median: 4.6 (3%)     max: 5.7 Watt
Power Consumption - Idle Power Consumption 150cd 1min *
min: 4.04     avg: 6.6     median: 6.6 (7%)     max: 9.24 Watt
Power Consumption - Cinebench R15 Multi Power Efficiency - external Monitor
26.4 Points per Watt (20%)

Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 7 155U → 100% n=24

Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 7 165U → 104% n=24

- 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

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v1.26
log 02. 01:29:46

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#1 checking url part for id 16913 +0s ... 0s

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#3 did not recreate cache, as it is less than 5 days old! Created at Sat, 01 Jun 2024 05:37:57 +0200 +0.001s ... 0.001s

#4 composed specs +0.028s ... 0.029s

#5 did output specs +0s ... 0.029s

#6 getting avg benchmarks for device 16915 +0.023s ... 0.052s

#7 got single benchmarks 16915 +0.014s ... 0.066s

#8 getting avg benchmarks for device 16913 +0.018s ... 0.085s

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#11 min, max, avg, median took s +0.201s ... 0.299s

#12 return log +0.032s ... 0.331s

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