Intel Core Ultra 7 165U "Meteor Lake" Linux Performance

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Core Ultra 7 165U "Meteor Lake" Linux Performance

For those considering an Intel Core Ultra 7 165U "Meteor Lake" powered laptop, here are some benchmarks of the 165U using a Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 compared against the Acer Swift 14 with the Core Ultra 7 155H (Meteor Lake), the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U (Zen 4) within the Framework 13, and the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS (Zen 4) within the Framework 16 under Linux.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-core-ultra-165u

[geerge]

So bigger number not better. intel really wanted to mess up their naming scheme even more huh

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

Phoronix Dance Battle === start;

[blackshard]

Very very odd numbers from this 165U part: it definitely does not look like a "U" model, probably something is off in the laptop/bios power management because of the high baseline power usage and very high peak power usage. I wonder how long the battery lasts

Power usage apart, on the performance front this processor is still not very appealing.

[bug77]

It places last in performance, as expected, but somehow it also manages to place last in power draw. That's pretty whacky.

[JEBjames]

Michael

"the Core Ultra 7 165U has 12 cores rather than 16 cores due to only having 2 P cores while having 8 E cores for both Meteor Lake SKUs."

12 cores = 2P + 8E?

Intel has a confusing amount of different core types in the same CPU these days. It might be clearer if you also mentioned the "2 low power efficiency cores". (12 = 2P + 8E + 2LPE).

I think it's time for Intel's final form. All new CPUs will have a single UHP ultra high power core with no hyperthreading and integrated BCOOL (tm) flame suppression circuits.

[schmidtbag]

This is really looking bleak for Intel. Laptops are pretty much the one thing they should be doing better than AMD, yet they're par at best, and (correct me if I'm wrong) those aren't even the Zen4C cores.

[jonnyheggheim]

You are welcome! Thanks for doing the testing. Sad to see that bad performance/watt compared to AMD.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

Only having TWO performance cores is kind of a joke in this form factor. It's more forgivable in something like a tablet / convertible Surface type device where they may even be in some TDP down scenario trying to get below 15W.

Tangentially related, but Microsoft is all in on ARM. Windows 11 24H2 will have a new compiler for a new kernel and a new scheduler all focused on maximizing performance from the new SOCs from Qualcomm / Nuvia. And a Prism (Rosetta equivalent) update is promising a 10%-20% performance improvement even for the junky pre-Nuvia SOCs. The Lenovo T14S Gen 6 with the Snapdragon X Elite has 12 performance cores and 0 efficiency cores and is promising "multiday" battery life out of a 58Whr battery. The only Copilot+ laptops on the market are from Qualcomm / Nuvia because the floor for the NPU performance is 40 TOPs and neither Intel or AMD are there yet.

AMD has some great offerings at 15W like the 7840U / 8840U, but this Intel SKU looks like hot garbage. I do wonder how well the Prism x86 translation layer will handle x86 games. Outside of that use case and assuming gaming is a crapfest on ARM, if you can get excellent performance AND 24 hour battery life out o f a Snapdragon X Elite (+ perks like 5G WWAN being way more common), that is going to be enticing even against AMD.

[timofonic]

Intel Outside!