Intel Core i7 1280P "Alder Lake P" Linux Laptop Performance

Launched earlier this year was Alder Lake P series for modern Intel laptops with up to 14 cores / 20 threads for modern Intel laptops. Many Phoronix readers have been inquiring about Alder Lake laptop support and performance under Linux and recently I finally got my hands on an Alder Lake P device in the form of the MSI Prestige 14Evo A12M-231 that features the flagship ADL-P model of the Core i7 1280P. Today's article is focused on the Linux performance of that flagship Core i7 1280P compared to other AMD and Intel laptop processors.

The Intel Core i7 1280P is a 14 core / 20 thread part consisting of six performance (P) cores and eight efficient (E) cores. The i7-1280P has a 4.8GHz maximum turbo frequency and the efficient cores top out at 3.6GHz. The i7-1280P has a 28 Watt base power rating and a 64 Watt maximum turbo power rating. The Intel Core i7 1280P boasts a 24MB Intel Smart Cache.

The Intel Core i7 1280P features Iris Xe Graphics with up to a 1.45GHz maximum dynamic frequency.

In a follow-up article I'll have a review focused more on the MSI Prestige 14Evo A12M-231 itself while this article is principally focused on the Core i7 1280P Linux performance. The i7-1280P works fine under Linux assuming you are on a recent Linux distribution, especially needing a newer kernel for the Alder Lake P graphics support. It's with Linux 5.17 and newer where Alder Lake P graphics are considered stable. With ADL-P, the Intel GuC/HuC firmware is also now a hard requirement as another important item to note. But if you are running a Linux distribution with 5.17+ and all the recent other software components, you should be in good shape.

For today's initial look at the Intel Core i7 1280P Linux performance the following CPUs/devices were tested:

Core i7 8565U - Going back to Intel Whiskey Lake for a look at how the performance has evolved with using a Dell XPS 13 9380.

Core i7 1065G7 - The Intel Ice Lake Linux performance with a Dell XPS 13 7390.

Core i7 1185G7 - The prior generation Tiger Lake Linux notebook performance with the high-end i7-1185G7 running within the Dell XPS 13 9310.

Core i7 1280P - The Alder Lake P focus of today's testing with the MSI Prestige 14Evo A12M-231.

Ryzen 7 4700U - The prior-generation AMD Ryzen 7 4700U running within a Lenovo IdeaPad.

Ryzen 5 5500U - The Zen 2 based Ryzen 5 5500U running within a TUXEDO Aura 15 Gen2 laptop.

Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U - The popular Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U within the HP Dev One Linux laptop.

Ryzen 9 5900HX - The prior flagship Ryzen 9 5900HX processor within the ASUS ROG STRIX 2021 AMD Advantage laptop.

Unfortunately as Linux support isn't of much interest to major OEMs especially when concerning marketing/review budgets for laptop review samples, I don't yet have an AMD Rembrandt laptop but will be soon (6850U). So stay tuned for AMD Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 series Linux testing very soon and for seeing how Alder Lake P stacks up there... But as these results are about to show, even the Ryzen 5000 series can give Alder Lake P quite a sweat. Similarly, the selection of notebooks/processors tested were based on what I had available locally for (re)testing.

All of these laptops were freshly (re)tested under Ubuntu 22.04 LTS while using the Linux 5.18 kernel across the board for the very latest stable Linux kernel.

Let's move on to seeing how the Intel Core i7 1280P competes under Linux.