Intel makes laptop gaming mainstream with its Core Ultra 200H CPUs

Intel’s giving its entire Core Ultra 200H range powerful ARC graphics solutions

If one thing was clear at CES 2025, it’s that Intel is taking the GPU market seriously. Not only has Intel confirmed its commitment to the discrete GPU market, but they have also delivered powerful integrated graphics solutions with its new Core Ultra 200H mobile CPUs.

Below are the specifications of Intel’s new Core UItra 200H CPUs. Note that all of them have seven or more GPU cores, with most models having eight. That’s the same number of Xe cores MSI’s Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld, a dedicated ARC-powered Windows gaming device.

With the Intel Core Ultra 200H series, we are entering a world where integrated graphics solutions are more than good enough for mainstream gaming purposes. With Intel’s Arrow Lake 200H laptops, any laptop could be a gaming laptop.

With their Core Ultra 200H series CPUs, Intel delivered increases in single-threaded and multi-threaded CPU performance. Furthermore, they have delivered greater graphics performance than their older Meteor Lake CPUs. Additionally, they have added XMX AI accelerators to their integrated graphics solutions. This allows Intel’s XeSS 2 technology to work on these integrated graphics solutions.

Boosted gaming performance with Intel Core Ultra 200H

With its new Core Ultra 285H CPU (and its ARC 140T GPU), Intel was able to deliver up to 22% more gaming performance than its older Ultra 9 185H CPU. One thing to note is that Intel’s new CPU ran at 45W while the older CPU ran at 55W. Not only is Intel’s new chip more performant, it is also more efficient.

Note that Intel’s older Ultra 9 185H CPU has a GPU that lacks XMX units. This makes this GPU incompatible with the AI-accelerated version of XeSS. It also makes it incompatible with the full XeSS 2 feature set.

If you add on Intel’s XeSS 2 technology, Intel claims that up to a 3.7x boost in gaming performance can be achieved with their Core Ultra 9 285H CPU and its integrated ARC GPU. This allows gamers to get more from their integrated graphic solutions, making more games playable.

Using XeSS super resolution, Intel can boost the gaming performance of their newest Core Ultra CPUs by up to 2x. However, it should be noted that most games receive much smaller performance increases.

Intel throws Qualcomm under the bus

Qualcomm is Intel’s latest rival within the laptop space, but when it comes to gaming, they don’t fare well against AMD and Intel. As it stands, Qualcomm’s Windows PCs have a “hit-and-miss” nature when it comes to PC gaming. Many games don’t boot. Others just run poorly. Yes, there are a few games that run “ok” on Qualcomm SOCs, but as it stands, Qualcomm’s SOCs aren’t ready for the PC gaming market.

Below, we can see that 21 of the games that Intel tested did not run on Qualcomm’s SOC. When it comes to gaming, Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285H CPUs are competitive with AMD’s Ryzen AI 365 SOC.

With their new Core Ultra 200H series CPUs, Intel is making integrated graphics a solid solution for gamers. Yes, discrete GPUs are king, but integrated graphics are becoming increasingly usable. This is good news for the PC gaming market, as mainstream access is undoubtedly a good thing. The era of terrible integrated graphics solutions appears to be coming to an end. Thanks Intel.

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