Lunar Lake at 17W - Windows Laptops NEEDED This

The Lunar Lake Processors: A Shift in the Ultra-Low Power Market

Like things are changing because in 3D Mark the 17 watt Ultra 7258 V simply dominates in most situations even against the 155h and the CPU it technically replaces the 155u well that thing is just a spec in the rearview mirror meanwhile gaming is typically one of AMD's strong points and it's been proven before these mobile AMD GPUs can shine but they need higher power limits than what the user can actually offer and that's exactly what we're seeing here the x1p 64 on the other hand well that doesn't fare any better but GPU horsepower is lacking across the entire Snapdragon lineup so its results shouldn't surprise anyone

I also need to mention our portrayal of Apple here there are only a few of these tests that are compatible with Mac OS and in those the M3 performs remarkably well but there's a flip side to that too unfortunately there aren't any software focused tools to log the data we need to include Apple devices in our game frame rate comparisons we're actually in the process of developing a whole custom suite of tools ourselves and you'll see some of those over the next few months but until then take the 3D Mark numbers as a loose reference of where the M3 would land in games that actually support it

What about actual frame rates now that power is capped to just 17 Watts well yeah overall output has of course decreased but it hasn't degraded anywhere close to as badly as other CPUs here especially Intel ones as a matter of fact every other integrated Graphics setup sees their performance run into the gutter while the 258 V is typically in another dimension comparatively I mean most of the time it isn't even close with the integrated Arc 140v delivering double or sometimes even triple the frame rates as a 1355 U and much much better performance than meteor lake or zen4 the only wild card here is Zen 5 AMD hasn't released a mid-range ryzen AI 300 series processor yet and their partners aren't running the current ryzen AI9 chips down to under 25 watts once that happens lunar Lake might have some honest competition here in the ultra low power range but until that point Intel is all alone at the top of the gaming performance charts

So have all these results using a power envelope that is supposed to play to lunar Lake strengths change my opinion of it I would say yes but not necessarily for lunar Lake what this goes to show is how hungry this side of the ultra low power Market is for any comparable whatsoever obviously ultra low power U series chips have been given the short end of the stick for way too long I mean look at some of the pathetic numbers put down by the 155u and 1355 U as proof even the 7840 U which had a few amazing results ended up falling flat yes laptops with these chips are generally less expensive than the new Ultra 7 Series but this still highlights the absolutely sad state of the ultra low power CPU Market

Meanwhile the 258 V showed amazing battery life and killer performance relative to the Alternatives in a lot of everyday apps and it just blew the doors off everything in gaming and GPU accelerated apps too meanwhile of course it does struggle a bit in heavily multi-threaded workloads but not as much as it did at higher wattages where there are plenty of alternative CPUs hopefully this serves as a template for what the Ultra 5 will offer in less expensive designs

Let's round this all up because we've now looked at lunar Lake in the higher wattage market and now in the ultra low power Market market and let's be honest here what Intel has created for the 25 wat to 30 W Market is something very very interesting when it comes to Performance per watt but there are a lot of competitors out there and some of them are very very good but when it comes to the ultra low power Market the pickings are just so slim they're slotting these CPUs into an area that is just filled with underperforming processors and that's where these chips can really really shine in the 17 watt to 20 wat space

But the one thing that's missing right now from the lunar Lake lineup and in devices that carry the chips is simply lower cost Alternatives in that $9.99 and lower price bracket and once that happens and I'm thinking it's going to happen with those Ultra 5 series chips that are supposed to be coming out in a couple of weeks well well it's hopefully going to shake up the market in a really really big way and hopefully it will prompt AMD to finally released the ryzen AI Series in lower power brackets but until that happens well lunar Lake it's it's actually very very impressive right across the entire range

So there you have it folks a lot to take away from our time with the Lunar Lake processors especially when looking at them in the ultra low power Market where they really shine. We're excited to see how these new CPUs will shake up the market and we can't wait to get our hands on more of their features and performance.