Intel Lunar Lake could revolutionize gaming handhelds, early tests of Core Ultra 7 CPU reveal
Intel’s Lunar Lake processors have caused quite a stir since the launch of the mobile chips, and another dive into the capabilities of these CPUs in the world of gaming handhelds won’t do the range any harm in terms of all the positive chatter.
There are of course no handhelds for sale with a Lunar Lake chip yet – not quite yet – so we can’t do a definitive test in that regard yet, but since Wccftech spotted, Geekerwan (op Bilibili) put a Lunar Lake CPU to the test in the low power range such a portable gaming device requires.
Specifically, Geekerwan (a well-known presence in the hardware scene) tested the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Lunar Lake) processor in a Yoga Air 15 laptop, running at 15W, against the Steam Deck (with its custom AMD Zen 2 chip) and Asus ROG Ally (with AMD’s Z1 Extreme). The Lunar Lake benchmarks were run with the laptop set to a resolution of 720p to represent handheld usage.
The Lunar Lake CPU proved to be more than twice as fast (2.3x) as the Z1 Extreme, and about 35% faster than the Steam Deck’s custom AMD silicon. The Core Ultra 7 258V was also compared to the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and was 67% faster than that laptop’s CPU, to boot, at this low power.
To be fair, the handhelds used slightly less power – the Z1 Extreme used 9W, as opposed to 12W with the Lunar Lake chip (where the motherboard used the extra juice, keeping the total under 15W). So the Intel CPU delivered a little more power, but even taking that into account, the results clearly reflect some big performance improvements.
Geekerwan’s testing of Cyberpunk 2077 showed that the Core Ultra 7 258V achieved 28 fps (with FSR on) compared to 13 fps and 11 fps for the Steam Deck and ROG Ally respectively (and 13 fps for the Ryzen AI HX 370).
Additionally, the laptop chips were also tested at their full power, and the 30W Lunar Lake CPU (in 1080p gaming) wasn’t that far behind the Ryzen AI HX 370, which is an 80W part – indeed in some games. it was right up there with the AMD chip.
Analysis: Intel gets back in the game
This is exciting stuff, make no mistake. We were hoping that Lunar Lake could be excellent processors for gaming handhelds, and this is exactly what these early tests seem to show – with the obvious caveat that this is just one round of benchmarking, and as mentioned we haven’t the Core Ultra 7 258V is not yet in gaming handhelds.
That moment is probably not that far away, however, and it looks like these new mobile processors will have a much bigger impact on the handheld gaming arena than Intel’s previous Meteor Lake chips managed. The CPU in the MSI Claw is Meteor Lake, as you may recall, and the sequel that will hopefully be released early next year – the MSI Claw 8 AI+ – will upgrade to Lunar Lake.
So that portable gaming player could be pretty awesome, as we noted during our hands-on with the Claw 8 AI+, albeit with a wrinkle on the graphics side. Lunar Lake includes Arc (Battlemage) integrated graphics, and while this is part of the excellent gaming performance in a lower power operating environment, it is also an issue with older games.
As you may know, Intel’s Arc drivers were relaunched from scratch a few years ago, and old titles are often left out in the cold with shaky support and potential compatibility issues. It really depends on what you want to play, but if classic PC games or indie titles are your thing, that might be trickier if you’re using an Intel processor instead of AMD. (It should also be noted that not every PC game runs on the Steam Deck – for various reasons).
Another crucial element for gaming handhelds is battery life, and the sequel to MSI’s Claw makes some big promises in this area too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Geekerwan found that the Core Ultra 7 258V in the Yoga Air 15 nearly matched the battery life of a MacBook Air M3 when testing battery life (this Core Ultra 7 even beat the Apple M3 in Lenovo’s claims for a Yoga Slim notebook, this should be noted).
All early signs point to Lunar Lake being something of a revelation for gaming handhelds, so let’s hope this turns out the way it looks given these first extremely promising looks at portable performance.