Intel Core Ultra 7 256V vs Intel Core Ultra 7 266V
Intel Core Ultra 7 256V
The Core Ultra 7 256V is an upper mid-range Lunar Lake family processor. This is an SoC for use in laptops and tablets of the slimmer kind that features 4 brand-new E-cores and 4 somewhat new P-cores running at 2.2 GHz to up to 4.8 GHz, along with the promising new Arc 140V iGPU and 16 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 47 TOPS neural engine, TB 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 7 258V is the amount of on-package RAM: 16 GB vs 32 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. These new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface; Lion Cove P-cores are replacing Redwood cores while Crestwood E-cores got ditched in favor of Skymont, the latter reportedly so power-efficient as to make the extra 2 Low Power Island CPU cores that Meteor Lake had completely redundant. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement to the table. For Skymont, it's 68%. Other generational improvements are present as well, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. Elsewhere, the 256V has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. TB 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 47 TOPS AI Boost neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
The 256V comes with 16 GB of on-package, non-replaceable LPDDR5X-8533 RAM.
Performance
The chip's efficient cores run at up to 3.7 GHz. For the P-cores, it's up to 4.8 GHz.
We expect the average 256V to be reasonably close to older U-class AMD and Intel chips such as the Ryzen 7 6800U and Core i7-1355U when it comes to multi-thread performance.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 140V has 8 Xe² architecture cores running at up to 1,950 MHz as well as 8 ray tracing units at its disposal. It is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of popular video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
Its real-world performance is set to be about as good as what the Radeon 780M and the Arc 8 deliver.
Power consumption
Most Lunar Lake processors are supposed to have a long-term power target of 17 W. The 256V certainly does. In the meantime, the Intel-recommended short-term PL for the chip sits at 37 W.
Intel Core Ultra 7 266V
The Core Ultra 7 266V is a higher-end Lunar Lake family processor. This is an SoC for use in laptops and tablets of the slimmer kind that features 4 brand-new E-cores and 4 somewhat new P-cores running at 2.2 GHz to up to 5.0 GHz, along with the promising new Arc 140V iGPU and 16 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 48 TOPS neural engine, TB 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 7 268V is the amount of on-package RAM: 16 GB vs 32 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. These new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface; Lion Cove P-cores are replacing Redwood cores while Crestwood E-cores got ditched in favor of Skymont, the latter reportedly so power-efficient as to make the extra 2 Low Power Island CPU cores that Meteor Lake had completely redundant. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement to the table. For Skymont, it's 68%. Other generational improvements are present as well, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. Elsewhere, the 266V has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. TB 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 48 TOPS AI Boost neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
The 266V comes with 16 GB of on-package, non-replaceable LPDDR5X-8533 RAM.
Performance
The chip's efficient cores run at up to 3.7 GHz. For the P-cores, it's up to 5.0 GHz.
We expect the average 266V to be very close to older U-class AMD and Intel chips such as the Ryzen 7 6800U and Core i7-1355U when it comes to multi-thread performance.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 140V has 8 Xe² architecture cores running at up to 2,000 MHz as well as 8 ray tracing units at its disposal. It is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of popular video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
Its real-world performance is set to be about as good as what the Radeon 780M and the Arc 8 deliver.
Power consumption
Most Lunar Lake processors are supposed to have a long-term power target of 17 W. The 266V does, too. In the meantime, the Intel-recommended short-term PL for the chip sits at 37 W.
Model | Intel Core Ultra 7 256V | Intel Core Ultra 7 266V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Series | Intel Lunar Lake | Intel Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Codename | Lunar Lake | Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Serie: Lunar Lake Lunar Lake |
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Clock | 2200 - 4800 MHz | 2200 - 5000 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
L3 Cache | 12 MB | 12 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 4 x 4.8 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.7 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | 8 / 8 4 x 5.0 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.7 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TDP | 17 Watt | 17 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TDP Turbo PL2 | 37 Watt | 37 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technology | 3 nm | 3 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Socket | BGA2833 | BGA2833 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Features | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (47 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AS, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (48 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AS, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
iGPU | Intel Arc Graphics 140V ( - 1950 MHz) | Intel Arc Graphics 140V ( - 2000 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architecture | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Announced | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manufacturer | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com |