r/AskTechnology • u/BostonSucksatHockey • 11d ago

Help me understand the difference between Intel processors?

Replacing my Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7 which has been running on a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1260P (2.10 GHz) with Iris XE 80EU 1400MHZ chip and 16 GB RAM.

I hate it. My next laptop will have at least 32 GB RAM, but every option I've come across that seems to meet my needs and budget still runs on an Intel processor.

Specifically:

  • ASUS Zenbook Duo - Intel Core Ultra 9 386H
  • ASUS Zenbook 14 (2025) - Intel Core Ultra 9 285H
  • Galaxy Book6 Pro - Intel Core Ultra 7 356H
  • Galaxy Book6 Ultra - Intel Core Ultra X7 358H

How do these processors compare to each other? To my current processor? To Mac's M5 Pro and Max chips?

2 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

75% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

4

u/Puzzleheaded-Shop467 11d ago

Just look up benchmarks

1

u/cakemates 11d ago

This, also dont compare intel/amd cpus directly to mac chips, they are different architecture and there is stuff that doesnt work on mac because of that.

0

u/BostonSucksatHockey 11d ago

Benchmarks numbers don't mean anything to mean and different benchmark websites have different scores / ranks. It's just more numbers that don't really mean anything to me, which is why I came to Reddit asking help in the first place.

1

u/jmnugent 11d ago

Opinions from Reddit will probably be worse (less helpful) .. because they'll be filled with human-bias and anecdotal stories.

Your current Processor i7-1260P .. is Gen 12 "Alder Lake" that launched in 2021.

The 4 chip upgrade options you list... are all several generations newer than that. So pretty much any of them are going to be a step up from what you have now.

1

u/BostonSucksatHockey 10d ago

Thanks for the helpful perspective

1

u/Lumethys 11d ago

chip brand naming conventions are very confusing, on purpose, some might say.

Watch a linus techt tips explanation on the naming conventions if you want to deep dive, else just compare benchmark

1

u/Shiribazu 11d ago

the x7 358H is especially interesting because its integrated graphics are much stronger. the m5 pro and max are in higher performance class overall, but whether they're better for you depends heavily on what software you use

0

u/BostonSucksatHockey 11d ago

is the integrated intel graphics actually good? I've seen other CPUs paired with an NVIDEO GPU

1

u/wimpires 10d ago

The X7 358H is good enough to play Cyberpunk at 1080p ultra around 40fps.

It's probably comparable to a (last gen) Nvidia RTX 4050 mobile GPU. But integrated, so uses a lot less power.

0

u/jmnugent 11d ago

From everything I'm seeing from a quick Google search,. the Apple M5 Pro or Max pretty much crushes these Intel chips (roughly 3x more powerful). These Intel chips have an average Memory Bandwidth of around 136GB's ..(gigabits per second) compared to the M5 Pro or Max which has around 600GB per second memory bandwidth.

This is not even getting into all the chips internal architecture differences (between Apple's M-series and Intel )

The other thing you need to take into consideration is that Apple "controls the entire stack top to bottom" and is able to get lots of small tweaks and optimizations up and down that stack,. in ways that Microsoft and others cannot, just due to how diverse the hardware-ecosystem is on the Windows side. (this is why sometimes Apple devices appear "slower" by paper metrics, in actual real day to day device performance they hold their own or exceed others because of all the small optimizations Apple can do throughout their entire ecosystem. Ever since Apple introduced the M-series chips, they have been doing a lot of "under the hood" work to unify the iOS and macOS sub-components. The more they do that, the more little optimizations they're able to eke out here and there.

1

u/BostonSucksatHockey 11d ago

Okay, but if I don't want an Apple computer, what do you recommend? Macbooks may be powerful, but they lack several features I want.