3-pound Lunarlake vs Arrowlake Laptops

[tp4tissue]

Some m0ar testn'  today.

On average. Arrowlake 255h vs Lunarlake 256V

In modern games, GPU bound.  Lunar lake is around 30-50%  more power efficient, fps/watt.   That's pretty enormous.

Example:

Doom 2016, 1920x1200 vulcan, near max settings
255h(140Tgpu), 62 fps 14w   
256v(140Vgpu), 78 fps 11.4w,  +54% fps/watt

Halo Infinite, lowest settings to saturate CPU frames
255h(140Tgpu), 104 fps 10.3w
256v(140Vgpu), 132 fps 8.2w,  +60% fps/watt

If you force the matter, in an older game, where it can take advantage of Arrowlake's giant 24mb cache, putting it into mid-bound scenarios, you can get it to run faster than Lunar lake.

The other issue is Power-Contention.

The 255h is 16core in a 40watt chassis
The 256v is 8core in a 40watt chassis

Because the Arrowlake 255h cpu cores are less efficient and so numerous, in many scenarios the power director can wobble and feel confused.

So, sometimes all power to the GPU,  sometimes direct xx% to CPU 1, here you get unstable RNG framerate.

On Lunarlake 256v, the power contention is more stable, because the GPU is so much more efficient, less fluctuation.

Not perfect, you can still trick it to do weird things, it is better though most of the time.


If you got some task that can Crank the CPU, the 255h hands down is way faster than 256v, but its efficiency becomes very bad during the crank.  It feels like in order to compete with AMD Zen 5, Intel pushed Arrowlake slightly outside of the hump.


Is 255h a good mobile option?  With absolutely no GPU requirements, which is often the case in people buying/using 14" laptops,  It's a sensible option.

If you HAVE gpu requirements SOMETIMES,  then 256v takes the lead.

[tp4tissue]

If you need a 3-pound laptop THIS YEAR.

Best chips.

Zen 375/370 with 890m igpu, matches/beats 140v intel.

Avoid Zen 360/350/340, these 860m/880m igpus are too damn slow, not competitive.

Intel 256v/258v  Lunarlake with 140v igpu

Intel 255h Arrowlake with 140t igpu,  Don't bother with higher model unless in a much bigger chassis like 16inch 50-60watt+,  255h already has enough trouble at 40watts as it is. Waste of money to go bigger.

[tp4tissue]

NEXT year. 

We may be looking at some Crazy gud' chips from AMD, with Zen 6 + RDNA 5, these are going to surpass anything Intel has in the tank for a LONG while.

Right now the 860m->890m are RDNA 3.5, so old gpu tech. That's why they're very mild.

RDNA 5 can probably do 1060-3gb performance in a 40watt chassis. Can it get to 1060-6gb, MAYBE, but it's a big maybe, Tp4 doubts it.


In 60watt chassis though, RDNA 5 will be EXTREMELY competitive.  So 16" laptops are going to be crazy good.  But 4-4.5lbs + power brick, 5-6lbs, mm..  You have to be a young person to carry that all day.

[tp4tissue]

Screenshot. Left is 255h, right is 256v.

Screen is the same amoled model/resolution, the right one just has glare from the angle.

+51% power efficiency on the 256v.

[tp4tissue]

The emoji button on laptop keyboard. 😃
🙃🫠

Wish they'd set it so if you hit enter, it'd go down instead of to the right.