The Intel Core Ultra 5-1255H: A Gaming PC with Mixed Results

As I sat down to test this new processor, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and curiosity. The Core Ultra 5-1255H is a CPU that promises high performance and low power consumption, making it an attractive option for gamers and content creators alike. But how does it stack up against its competitors?

First things first, let's take a look at the GPU side of things. I chose to use the Acer RX 6500M, which features six cores at 1555 MHz and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The Acer RX 6500M is a strong performer in its own right, but when paired with this new Core Ultra processor, it's clear that there's a bit of a mismatch. We're running CER bench R23, which typically yields scores around 13,417 and 6065 Watts. However, with the Core Ultra 5-1255H, we're seeing scores closer to 13,417 and 2200 Watts.

Moving on to Geek Bench, single core performance is at 2222, while multi-core performance is a respectable 10,962. These results are impressive, but it's worth noting that these are synthetic benchmarks, and the performance may not translate as well to real-world gaming.

I also wanted to run some GPU benchmarks using 3D Mark Time Spy. As you might expect, these scores are higher than those on the Radeon RX 6500M, with an average of around 72 FPS at 1080p in Horizon 5, despite being set to low graphics settings. However, I had to drop the resolution down to 900p to see this level of performance. The game also dips under 60 FPS when using ultra settings.

Next up was Red Dead 2, which requires a fair amount of processing power to run smoothly. In 900p at low settings with FSR set to balanced mode, we're seeing an average of around 60 FPS. However, I was hoping for better results here, and the game ultimately dips under 60 FPS when set to ultra settings.

Finally, I wanted to test out Cyberpunk 2077 in 900p with low graphics settings and XS enabled. Unfortunately, this game is a bit of a disappointment, as we're seeing an average of around 58 FPS, which is significantly lower than what the Radeon RX 6500M can handle.

One final thing that I wanted to note was power consumption. With this Mini PC plugged into a kilowatt meter, at idle we're seeing around 10 watts, while gaming does push the total system power up to around 51 Watts, and in extreme tests, it jumps all the way up to 81 Watts.

Overall, the Intel Core Ultra 5-1255H is a solid performer for everyday desktop tasks, such as email, video playback, and general productivity. However, when it comes to gaming, this processor falls short of expectations. If you're looking to build a Mini PC specifically for gaming, I would recommend going with an AMD Ryzen 7 or 8 series CPU instead.

In fact, the MSI CLAW is still one of the top options for gaming on this platform, despite its power consumption and relatively high heat output. However, if you're willing to deal with these trade-offs, the CLAW does offer some impressive performance.

That's not to say that the Intel Core Ultra 5-1255H doesn't have any redeeming qualities. If you're looking for a low-power CPU for everyday tasks, this one should be more than capable of handling your needs.

In conclusion, while the Intel Core Ultra 5-1255H is an impressive performer in many areas, its lackluster gaming performance and high power consumption do make it less attractive as a gaming PC. However, if you're looking for a solid all-around CPU for everyday use, this should be worth considering.

Gmk Tech's K8 Mini PC Review

In my previous review of the Gmk Tech K8 Mini PC, I mentioned that it was powered by the AMD Ryzen 8845HS. As it turns out, the Ryzen 8850H is a more powerful variant of the same processor family. The results are quite impressive, with this new CPU leaving the Core Ultra 5-1255H in the dust.

Gmk Tech's K8 Mini PC has the advantage of being powered by a true high-end CPU from AMD, which gives it a significant edge over the Core Ultra 5-1255H when it comes to gaming performance. The results are clear: if you're looking for a top-notch Mini PC for gaming, this is definitely the way to go.

That's not to say that the Intel Core Ultra 5-1255H doesn't have its own strengths. As I mentioned earlier, it excels in everyday desktop tasks such as email and video playback. However, when compared to the Ryzen-powered K8 Mini PC, it simply can't compete.

Ultimately, if you're looking for a top-notch gaming PC that can handle demanding games at high resolutions, this is the way to go. But if you're on a budget or need something more powerful than what the Core Ultra 5-1255H has to offer, consider the Gmk Tech K8 Mini PC instead.

In conclusion, while the Intel Core Ultra 5-1255H may not be the top choice for gaming, it's still a solid option for everyday desktop tasks. However, if you're looking for something that can truly handle demanding games at high resolutions, the Ryzen-powered K8 Mini PC is definitely worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at a brand new Mini PC hit in the market from gmk Tech known as the K9 and if you're into kind of tech at all you know that AI has kind of been the rage for a lot of people when it comes to their new products AI this AI that a lot of these companies are jumping on the bandwagon and the K9 isn't any different because they opted to use the new core Ultra CPU and this is one that we actually haven't tested on the channel yet we've taken a look at the core Ultra 135h core Ultra 7 155h and even up to the 195h but with this they have the new Intel Core Ultra 125h so it is a lower-end variant but we still get 14 cores and 18 threads and inside of the Box along with the new gmk tech K9 what we're going to get here is a mounting system so this can go behind your monitor on the wall under your desk we also get a 6-t HDMI cable and our 120 W power supply still utilizing that Barrel Jack something I love seeing most of the these guys are swapping over to USB type-c so I really do like that they've kept it with that Barrel taking a look at the io up front here we got a 3.5mm audio jack two full-size USB 3.2 ports and this type-c port up here is actually a thunderbolt 4 Port it does support egpus and really fast 40 gig storage moving around back two more full-size USB 3.2 ports full-size display port full sizee HDMI and dual 2.5 GB ethernet I also wanted to give you a look at the ENT internals and just how easy it is to upgrade that storage and RAM top pops right off with a few Clips we've also got a newer cooling system from gmk Tech basically this will draw some air in to help cool off that RAM and nvme drives just to get some air flow in there and we will need to go ahead and unplug this before we get down any further but once we get a look inside you can see this does utilize dual Channel sodm Ram we can do up to 96 gigs here and we've got two pcie 4.0 nvme slots in here this unit came to me from the factory with a 1 TB nvme drive and 32 GB of dual Channel sodm running at 5600 MHz but remember you can pick this up Bare Bones and add your own storage and RAM later on and of course when it comes to the overall specs here this is a chip I've been wanting to test it is a lower end variant of the new Intel Core Ultra CPUs it's the Ultra 5 125h 14 cores 18 threats and with this we get four performance cores up to 4.5 GHz eight efficiency cores up to 3.6 and two low power efficiency cores up to 2.5 now don't forget we've also got Intel's new AI boost here it's an npu up to 1.4 GHz built-in Intel archive GPU with the 125h it only has 7 XE cores I was under the impression this had the same thing as the core Ultra 7 155h one last core but it does clock up near about the same to 2200 mahz supports up to 96 GB of ddr5 at 5600 to nvme SS SD slots Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 and this is running Windows 11 Pro but again you can pick this up Bare Bones from their website so first things first I wanted to jump right into the BIOS because with these core Ultra chips mini PCS and even laptops I've notice there's usually a section known as power mode select either balanced performance or even quiet we definitely want to go to Performance power and performance CPU power management control looks like basically everything's unlocked here but with these Ultra chips sometimes when you making changes in the Bios it's just not going to help out it's kind of a weird deal that I've seen with a lot of the laptops and everything powered by the core Ultra Series uh power limit 4 this is not going to go to 120 watts I can tell you that right now I think we're going to be at 45 to 65 even in um performance mode but just wanted to give you a look there I do suggest going directly to Performance with these PCS we're going to save changes and exit get right into Windows as you can see we've got those 14 cores with that Ultra 5 125h 32 gigs of ddr5 at 5600 and we've got the Intel art Graphics this will allocate up to 16 gigs of RAM remember from the BIOS we did go to Performance mode and I wanted to see exactly what this thing's going to run at we can stress out that CPU and right here looks like it's jumping up to around 61 62 Watts let's go ahead and put a load on that Arc GPU see if it gives us any more no it's just going to take it away from the CPU use it over here with the GPU so basically we're up to around 60 watts with this unit in performance mode now we could use a third party app to try to get this up but we're going to test it just like it is and I'll tell you using this as an everyday desktop is really quick I kind of expected it to be we'll head over to gmk Tech website real quick everything loads up really quickly we've got Wi-Fi 6 next thing I wanted to check out was a little bit of 4K video playback make sure we're at 4K stats for nerds I suspect we'll see some really good 4K with this this is 4K 60fps HDR stats for nerds up in the top leand Corner zero drop frames and even though this will run it up to around 60 watts we're not pulling 60 watts here checking out my kilowatt meter we're at about 14.3 Watts with 4 K video playback and I am in performance mode taking it down to quiet mode will still allow you to play 4K just fine it'll go through all the way but you won't pull as much power and yeah even the older lower-end Intel chips for the mini PCS out there like the 4105 has really been good for 4K video playback so I suspected the 125h would handle it just fine I was under the impression that the 125h actually had the same igpu as the 155h but it looks like we get S XE cores instead of eight so take one off the top there but they are running at similar clocks this goes up to 2200 next thing I wanted to take a look at were some benchmarks on the CPU and GPU side of things with CER bench R23 we're right there at 13,417 and again we're up to around 6065 Watts here moving over to geek bench 6 single core 2,222 multi 10,962 and finally I wanted to run at least one GPU Benchmark so I went with 3D Mark time spy we run this quite a bit on Radeon I gpus and with mostly every core Ultra CPU that I've tested so far with this new AR I GPU we've seen higher scores than over there on Radeon but these are synthetic benchmarks and the performance doesn't always transfer over to Real World gameplay first game we have here is one that I love to test on igpus because it works so well across the board for of horizon 5 right now we're at 1080p but we had to drop it down to low to see this kind of performance no XS so we're not using any kind of resolution scale we got a true 1080p we're seeing an average of around 72 FPS and at medium settings with no scaling it does dip down to an average of 61 I also wanted to run the built-in Benchmark for Red Dead 2 dropped it down to 900p low settings and I am using FSR set it balanced with this one if we had access the XC SS I'd definitely be using it here but FSR does work with Intel minimum of 14 maximum of 83 and an average of 60 FPS OG Sky Rim just had to throw it in to see what we could do and unfortunately at ultra settings with this we did dip under 60 I was seeing an average of around 58 I was actually sure we'd be able to run this locked at 60 or even over 60 at ultra settings with this setup given how old this game is it's not the remastered version but right now we're at high 1080P and we're seeing an average of around 74 FP yes and the final game I wanted to test here was cyberpunk 2077 900p low XS set to Balan and if you've tried this on these new Intel archive gpus you know that it's a bit hit or miss and right now I think it's really missing I mean compared to something like the Radeon 78m we're way under what that thing can do I also wanted to take a look at total system power consumption and this is everything being pulled from the wall with this Mini PC got this plugged into a kilowatt meter and at idle we're seeing around 10 watts 4K video playback 14 average gaming does go up to around 51 watts and in an extreme test while maxing out all 14 cores and and that new archi GPU 81 watts in total so overall you know when it comes to these new core Ultra CPUs they're great for everyday desktop usage you want to get some email done 4K video playback all those little tasks that you're going to do this thing performs absolutely fine but then when you move over to gaming these new core Ultra CPUs with that new Ary GPU really fall on their face if you're familiar with the MSI claw you know exactly what I'm talking about and given that we can run these at such high wattages compared to hand with these core Ultra chips figured we'd be seeing a little better performance here and there but unfortunately it's just not transferring over so to be totally honest if you're looking to pick up a Mini PC for gaming I would definitely go with ryzen either that 7840 U and up or even the new 8840 you and up speaking of that gmk Tech recently released their K8 Mini PC I did a review on it a few weeks ago it's powered by the AMD ryzen 8845 HS and it really does kind of wipe the floor with this when it comes to gaming now in everyday normal tasks you're not going to notice a big difference between the two of them you can get everything done on either one of those many PCs but if you know you're going to be gaming on it definitely go with ryzen but that's going to wrap it up for this one I really appreciate you watching if you're interested in learning a little more about the K9 or maybe even the ryzen powered K8 I'll leave some links down below and if there's anything else at all you want to see running on this PC with the core Ultra 5 125h let me know in the comments but like always thanks for for watchinghey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at a brand new Mini PC hit in the market from gmk Tech known as the K9 and if you're into kind of tech at all you know that AI has kind of been the rage for a lot of people when it comes to their new products AI this AI that a lot of these companies are jumping on the bandwagon and the K9 isn't any different because they opted to use the new core Ultra CPU and this is one that we actually haven't tested on the channel yet we've taken a look at the core Ultra 135h core Ultra 7 155h and even up to the 195h but with this they have the new Intel Core Ultra 125h so it is a lower-end variant but we still get 14 cores and 18 threads and inside of the Box along with the new gmk tech K9 what we're going to get here is a mounting system so this can go behind your monitor on the wall under your desk we also get a 6-t HDMI cable and our 120 W power supply still utilizing that Barrel Jack something I love seeing most of the these guys are swapping over to USB type-c so I really do like that they've kept it with that Barrel taking a look at the io up front here we got a 3.5mm audio jack two full-size USB 3.2 ports and this type-c port up here is actually a thunderbolt 4 Port it does support egpus and really fast 40 gig storage moving around back two more full-size USB 3.2 ports full-size display port full sizee HDMI and dual 2.5 GB ethernet I also wanted to give you a look at the ENT internals and just how easy it is to upgrade that storage and RAM top pops right off with a few Clips we've also got a newer cooling system from gmk Tech basically this will draw some air in to help cool off that RAM and nvme drives just to get some air flow in there and we will need to go ahead and unplug this before we get down any further but once we get a look inside you can see this does utilize dual Channel sodm Ram we can do up to 96 gigs here and we've got two pcie 4.0 nvme slots in here this unit came to me from the factory with a 1 TB nvme drive and 32 GB of dual Channel sodm running at 5600 MHz but remember you can pick this up Bare Bones and add your own storage and RAM later on and of course when it comes to the overall specs here this is a chip I've been wanting to test it is a lower end variant of the new Intel Core Ultra CPUs it's the Ultra 5 125h 14 cores 18 threats and with this we get four performance cores up to 4.5 GHz eight efficiency cores up to 3.6 and two low power efficiency cores up to 2.5 now don't forget we've also got Intel's new AI boost here it's an npu up to 1.4 GHz built-in Intel archive GPU with the 125h it only has 7 XE cores I was under the impression this had the same thing as the core Ultra 7 155h one last core but it does clock up near about the same to 2200 mahz supports up to 96 GB of ddr5 at 5600 to nvme SS SD slots Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.2 and this is running Windows 11 Pro but again you can pick this up Bare Bones from their website so first things first I wanted to jump right into the BIOS because with these core Ultra chips mini PCS and even laptops I've notice there's usually a section known as power mode select either balanced performance or even quiet we definitely want to go to Performance power and performance CPU power management control looks like basically everything's unlocked here but with these Ultra chips sometimes when you making changes in the Bios it's just not going to help out it's kind of a weird deal that I've seen with a lot of the laptops and everything powered by the core Ultra Series uh power limit 4 this is not going to go to 120 watts I can tell you that right now I think we're going to be at 45 to 65 even in um performance mode but just wanted to give you a look there I do suggest going directly to Performance with these PCS we're going to save changes and exit get right into Windows as you can see we've got those 14 cores with that Ultra 5 125h 32 gigs of ddr5 at 5600 and we've got the Intel art Graphics this will allocate up to 16 gigs of RAM remember from the BIOS we did go to Performance mode and I wanted to see exactly what this thing's going to run at we can stress out that CPU and right here looks like it's jumping up to around 61 62 Watts let's go ahead and put a load on that Arc GPU see if it gives us any more no it's just going to take it away from the CPU use it over here with the GPU so basically we're up to around 60 watts with this unit in performance mode now we could use a third party app to try to get this up but we're going to test it just like it is and I'll tell you using this as an everyday desktop is really quick I kind of expected it to be we'll head over to gmk Tech website real quick everything loads up really quickly we've got Wi-Fi 6 next thing I wanted to check out was a little bit of 4K video playback make sure we're at 4K stats for nerds I suspect we'll see some really good 4K with this this is 4K 60fps HDR stats for nerds up in the top leand Corner zero drop frames and even though this will run it up to around 60 watts we're not pulling 60 watts here checking out my kilowatt meter we're at about 14.3 Watts with 4 K video playback and I am in performance mode taking it down to quiet mode will still allow you to play 4K just fine it'll go through all the way but you won't pull as much power and yeah even the older lower-end Intel chips for the mini PCS out there like the 4105 has really been good for 4K video playback so I suspected the 125h would handle it just fine I was under the impression that the 125h actually had the same igpu as the 155h but it looks like we get S XE cores instead of eight so take one off the top there but they are running at similar clocks this goes up to 2200 next thing I wanted to take a look at were some benchmarks on the CPU and GPU side of things with CER bench R23 we're right there at 13,417 and again we're up to around 6065 Watts here moving over to geek bench 6 single core 2,222 multi 10,962 and finally I wanted to run at least one GPU Benchmark so I went with 3D Mark time spy we run this quite a bit on Radeon I gpus and with mostly every core Ultra CPU that I've tested so far with this new AR I GPU we've seen higher scores than over there on Radeon but these are synthetic benchmarks and the performance doesn't always transfer over to Real World gameplay first game we have here is one that I love to test on igpus because it works so well across the board for of horizon 5 right now we're at 1080p but we had to drop it down to low to see this kind of performance no XS so we're not using any kind of resolution scale we got a true 1080p we're seeing an average of around 72 FPS and at medium settings with no scaling it does dip down to an average of 61 I also wanted to run the built-in Benchmark for Red Dead 2 dropped it down to 900p low settings and I am using FSR set it balanced with this one if we had access the XC SS I'd definitely be using it here but FSR does work with Intel minimum of 14 maximum of 83 and an average of 60 FPS OG Sky Rim just had to throw it in to see what we could do and unfortunately at ultra settings with this we did dip under 60 I was seeing an average of around 58 I was actually sure we'd be able to run this locked at 60 or even over 60 at ultra settings with this setup given how old this game is it's not the remastered version but right now we're at high 1080P and we're seeing an average of around 74 FP yes and the final game I wanted to test here was cyberpunk 2077 900p low XS set to Balan and if you've tried this on these new Intel archive gpus you know that it's a bit hit or miss and right now I think it's really missing I mean compared to something like the Radeon 78m we're way under what that thing can do I also wanted to take a look at total system power consumption and this is everything being pulled from the wall with this Mini PC got this plugged into a kilowatt meter and at idle we're seeing around 10 watts 4K video playback 14 average gaming does go up to around 51 watts and in an extreme test while maxing out all 14 cores and and that new archi GPU 81 watts in total so overall you know when it comes to these new core Ultra CPUs they're great for everyday desktop usage you want to get some email done 4K video playback all those little tasks that you're going to do this thing performs absolutely fine but then when you move over to gaming these new core Ultra CPUs with that new Ary GPU really fall on their face if you're familiar with the MSI claw you know exactly what I'm talking about and given that we can run these at such high wattages compared to hand with these core Ultra chips figured we'd be seeing a little better performance here and there but unfortunately it's just not transferring over so to be totally honest if you're looking to pick up a Mini PC for gaming I would definitely go with ryzen either that 7840 U and up or even the new 8840 you and up speaking of that gmk Tech recently released their K8 Mini PC I did a review on it a few weeks ago it's powered by the AMD ryzen 8845 HS and it really does kind of wipe the floor with this when it comes to gaming now in everyday normal tasks you're not going to notice a big difference between the two of them you can get everything done on either one of those many PCs but if you know you're going to be gaming on it definitely go with ryzen but that's going to wrap it up for this one I really appreciate you watching if you're interested in learning a little more about the K9 or maybe even the ryzen powered K8 I'll leave some links down below and if there's anything else at all you want to see running on this PC with the core Ultra 5 125h let me know in the comments but like always thanks for for watching\n"