Intel Core Ultra 7 268V vs Intel Core Ultra 5 236V vs Intel Core Ultra 5 226V
Intel Core Ultra 7 268V
► remove from comparison
The Intel Core Ultra 7 268V is a higher-end Lunar Lake family processor. This is an SoC for use in tablets and laptops of the slimmer kind that was unveiled in Autumn 2024. It sports 4 new Skymont E-cores and 4 new Lion Cove P-cores running at up to 3.7 GHz and 5.0 GHz respectively, along with the new Arc 140V iGPU and 32 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 48 TOPS neural engine, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well. A vPro-enabled version of the CPU became available in early 2025.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 7 266V is the amount of on-package, non-replaceable RAM: 32 GB vs 16 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. The new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement over Redwood Cove. For Skymont and Crestmont, the difference is much higher at 68%. Several tweaks and improvements are present here, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. The 268V has a very healthy 12 MB of level 3 cache; elsewhere, it has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 48 TOPS "AI Boost" neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
Intel is predicted to get short of on-package RAM in subsequent CPU generations.
Performance
The 268V should be just a couple of percentage points faster than the 258V for an Core Ultra 7 165U or Core i7-1360P-like multi-thread performance, provided it's running at the default long-term TDP power target which is 17 W.
Generally speaking, the 288V, 268V, 266V, 258V, 256V are faster than the 238V, 236V, 228V and 226V due to the difference in their last-level cache size (8 MB vs 12 MB) as well as clock speeds. However, the difference in performance between the slowest Lunar Lake chip, the 226V, and the fastest chip, the 288V is fairly small at around 10% to 15%. It depends on the TDP figures of the laptops being pitted against each other more than on anything else.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 140V is here to replace the Arc 8 iGPU. Its 8 Xe² architecture "cores" run at up to 2,000 MHz and it also has 8 ray tracing units at its disposal. The adapter is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of popular video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
All 2023 and 2024 games are playable at 1080p on low graphics settings or higher with this iGPU. We got well over 30 fps in Ghost of Tsushima and almost 40 fps in Baldur's Gate 3. This means the Radeon 780M gets left behind while the Radeon 890M reigns supreme.
Power consumption
This 2nd generation Core Ultra processor is supposed to consume 17 W when under long-term workloads. The Intel-recommended short-term power limit for the chip sits at 37 W.
Intel Core Ultra 5 236V
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core Ultra 5 236V is a mid-range Lunar Lake family processor. This is an SoC for use in tablets and laptops of the slimmer kind that was unveiled in Autumn 2024. It features 4 new Skymont E-cores and 4 new Lion Cove P-cores running at up to 3.5 GHz and 4.7 GHz respectively, along with the new Arc 130V iGPU and 16 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 40 TOPS neural engine, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well. A vPro-enabled version of the CPU became available in early 2025.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 5 238V is the amount of on-package, non-upgradeable RAM: 16 GB vs 32 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. The new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement over Redwood Cove. For Skymont and Crestmont, the difference is much higher at 68%. Several tweaks and improvements are present here, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. The 236V's level 3 cache is pretty small as compared to more expensive Ultra 7 2xxV and Ultra 9 2xxV chips at 8 MB vs 12 MB. Elsewhere, the 236V has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 40 TOPS "AI Boost" neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
Intel is predicted to get short of on-package RAM in subsequent CPU generations.
Performance
Based on Geekbench 6.3 Multi test results available online in early Nov 2024, the 236V (and the 238V) delivers around 10,100 points, putting it on equal footing with chips such as AMD's Ryzen 7 7735HS and Apple's M2 which is an OK result for a thin-and-light laptop in late 2024.
Generally speaking, the 226V, 228V, 236V and 238V are slower than the 256V, 258V, 266V, 268V, 288V due to the difference in their last-level cache size (8 MB vs 12 MB) as well as clock speeds. However, the difference in performance between the slowest Lunar Lake chip, the 226V, and the fastest chip, the 288V is fairly small at around 10% to 15%. It depends on the TDP figures of the laptops being pitted against each other more than on anything else.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 130V has 7 Xe² architecture "cores" running at up to 1,850 MHz, as well as 7 ray tracing units at its disposal. This is a direct successor to the Arc 7 iGPU; it is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
Its performance can be vastly different depending on which benchmarks and games one runs. Oftentimes, it isn't much faster than its direct predecessor, the Arc 7. It is clear the 130V isn't fast enough to run most triple-A 2024 games at 1080p. However, it's still more than good enough for an occasional gaming session.
- Helldivers 2: 25 fps (Med, 1080p). The Arc 7 and the Radeon 880M deliver similar results.
- Ready or Not: 40 fps (Med, 1080p). The GeForce MX350 delivers a similar result.
Power consumption
This 2nd generation Core Ultra processor is supposed to consume 17 W when under long-term workloads. The Intel-recommended short-term power limit for the chip sits at 37 W.
Intel Core Ultra 5 226V
► remove from comparisonThe Intel Core Ultra 5 226V is one of the 2 slowest Lunar Lake family processors as of Nov 2024. This is an SoC for use in tablets and laptops of the slimmer kind that was unveiled in Autumn 2024. It features 4 new Skymont E-cores and 4 new Lion Cove P-cores running at up to 3.5 GHz and 4.5 GHz respectively, along with the new Arc 130V iGPU and 16 GB of on-package LPDDR5x-8533 RAM. A new 40 TOPS neural engine, Thunderbolt 4 and PCIe 5 SSD support are included as well.
The only difference between this chip and the Ultra 5 228V is the amount of on-package, non-replaceable RAM: 16 GB vs 32 GB respectively.
Architecture and Features
Lunar Lake is built using the Foveros technology (stacking several dies on top of each other and next to each other), just like Meteor Lake was. The new chips make use of the enormous BGA2833 socket interface. Of the 8 cores, not a single one is Hyper-Threading-enabled which is the opposite of what AMD currently does with its Zen 5/5c chips.
Intel claims Lion Cove cores bring a 14% IPC improvement over Redwood Cove. For Skymont and Crestmont, the difference is a staggering 68%. Several tweaks and improvements are present here, such as the Low Latency Fabric that is supposed to make small data transfers between cores/caches a lot faster. The 226V's level 3 cache is pretty small as compared to more expensive Ultra 7 2xxV and Ultra 9 2xxV chips at 8 MB vs 12 MB. Elsewhere, the 226V has 4 PCIe 5 and 4 PCIe 4 lanes for connecting various kinds of devices, including NVMe SSDs at up to 15.75 GB/s. Thunderbolt 4 support is onboard by default, as is support for CNVi WiFi 7 + BT 5.4 cards from Intel. The 40 TOPS "AI Boost" neural engine is present along with technologies such as Threat Detection to make AI-enabled applications such as the Windows Defender more powerful.
Intel is predicted to get short of on-package RAM in subsequent CPU generations.
Performance
Our in-house testing of an Acer laptop powered by the Ultra 5 chip revealed the latter to be about as fast as the Ryzen 7 7730U and the Ryzen 7 7735U in multi-threaded tasks which is OK but not mind-blowing for late 2024. It is worth noting that the laptop in question does not use the Intel-recommended 17 W long-term power target; instead, the processor gets 30 W to eat which affects its benchmark scores significantly.
Generally speaking, the 226V, 228V, 236V and 238V are slower than the 256V, 258V, 266V, 268V, 288V due to the difference in their last-level cache size as well as clock speeds. However, the difference in performance between the slowest Lunar Lake chip, the 226V, and the fastest chip, the 288V is fairly small at around 10% to 15%. Exact figures depend on the TDP values of the laptops being pitted against each other more than on anything else.
Graphics
The Arc Graphics 130V has 7 Xe² architecture "cores" running at up to 1,850 MHz, as well as 7 ray tracing units at its disposal. This is a direct successor to the Arc 7 iGPU; it is DirectX 12 Ultimate-enabled and able to HW-decode a long list of video codecs such as h.266 VVC, h.265 HEVC, h.264 AVC, AV1 and VP9. Three SUHD 4320p monitors can be used simultaneously with this iGPU.
Its performance can be vastly different depending on which benchmarks and games one runs. Oftentimes, it isn't much faster than its direct predecessor, the Arc 7. It is clear the 130V isn't fast enough to run most triple-A 2024 games at 1080p. However, it's still more than good enough for an occasional gaming session.
- Helldivers 2: 25 fps (Med, 1080p). The Arc 7 and the Radeon 880M deliver similar results.
- Ready or Not: 40 fps (Med, 1080p). The GeForce MX350 delivers a similar result.
Power consumption
While this 2nd generation Core Ultra processor is supposed to consume 17 W when under long-term workloads, the only laptop powered by this chip that we have tested as of early Nov 2024 has a much higher value than that at 30 W.
The Intel-recommended short-term power limit for the chip sits at 37 W.
| Model | Intel Core Ultra 7 268V | Intel Core Ultra 5 236V | Intel Core Ultra 5 226V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Codename | Lunar Lake | Lunar Lake | Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series | Intel Lunar Lake | Intel Lunar Lake | Intel Lunar Lake | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Series: Lunar Lake Lunar Lake |
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| Clock | 2200 - 5000 MHz | 2100 - 4700 MHz | 2100 - 4500 MHz | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L1 Cache | 1.4 MB | 1.4 MB | 1.4 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L2 Cache | 14 MB | 14 MB | 14 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| L3 Cache | 12 MB | 8 MB | 8 MB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 8 4 x 5.0 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.7 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | 8 / 8 4 x 4.7 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.5 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | 8 / 8 4 x 4.5 GHz Intel Lion Cove P-core 4 x 3.5 GHz Intel Skymont E-core | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP | 17 Watt | 17 Watt | 17 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TDP Turbo PL2 | 37 Watt | 37 Watt | 37 Watt | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technology | 3 nm | 3 nm | 3 nm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| max. Temp. | 100 °C | 100 °C | 100 °C | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socket | BGA2833 | BGA2833 | BGA2833 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Features | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (48 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (40 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | LPDDR5x-8533 RAM, PCIe 5 + PCIe 4, USB 4, AI Boost NPU (40 TOPS), Thread Director, PSE, Threat Detection, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX-VNNi, FMA3, SHA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| iGPU | Intel Arc Graphics 140V ( - 2000 MHz) | Intel Arc Graphics 130V ( - 1850 MHz) | Intel Arc Graphics 130V ( - 1850 MHz) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Architecture | x86 | x86 | x86 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Announced | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Manufacturer | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com | ark.intel.com |
Benchmarks
Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 7 268V → 100% n=2
Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 5 236V → 89% n=2
Average Benchmarks Intel Core Ultra 5 226V → 91% n=2
- Average benchmark values for this graphics card* Smaller numbers mean a higher performance
1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
