Intel Core Ultra 7 155H delivers mixed performance in leaked tests: fast integrated graphics, slow CPU results

A review of Intel's Core Ultra 7 155H has been published before the official launch on December 14, and the chip's performance is pretty mixed. Tested by Bilibili user Corbcas, their 155H-equipped laptop displayed impressive integrated GPU performance in 3DMark Time Spy but poor CPU performance in Cinebench R23.

As far as we know, the 155H is one of the faster, high-power Meteor Lake chips Intel has in the pipeline. Considering the Core Ultra 9 185H is the only higher-end CPU to have been leaked thus far, the 155H might even be the second-fastest H-class CPU Intel has for this generation, at least so far. So, the performance results are somewhat surprising on the CPU side.

*Scores are approximations

Comparing these benchmarks to data from our own testing, the official 3DMark rankings, and ballpark figures based on public data, it's not a great overall picture for the 155H. It did manage roughly a 20% higher multi-threaded score than the Core i7-1360P inside our Dell XPS 13 Plus, but it lost in the single-threaded test. It was beaten by a fair margin by AMD's competing Phoenix-based Ryzen 7 7840HS in both metrics.

However, things look much more positive in Time Spy. The 155H easily has the fastest integrated graphics out of the three chips, beating even the 780M graphics inside the 7840HS. That iGPU is the one that powers top-end gaming handhelds like the ROG Ally, so the 155H being faster is a pretty big deal. However, it did have four memory channels to help it out, and the 780M has just two channels.

Power consumption, however, was another point against the 155H, with roughly 40 watts used in both Cinebench R23 and Time Spy. The 7840HS and the 1360P consume roughly that amount, at least at peak performance, which means the 155H is somehow less efficient than even Intel's last-generation chip.

Of course, this pre-launch review isn't without significant caveats. For starters, we know very little about the testing conditions, including the model of the laptop, which tends to be pretty important. We don't even know if the power consumption figures given were the average or the maximum, which would be nice to know.

However, one interesting thing in the Time Spy results could tell us something useful: a CPU frequency over time chart. It looks like the 155H peaked at 4.5GHz just three times and, for the duration of the test, had a very inconsistent clock speed that dipped to as low as 3GHz or so at times. That could explain the middling CPU performance results, but since we can only see half of the graph, it's difficult to say for sure.

Realistically, it's hard to imagine Meteor Lake having worse CPU performance and efficiency than Raptor Lake, especially considering it uses a new microarchitecture and the latest Intel 4 process (formerly 7nm). Something is definitely strange with these results. If any data here is representative of Meteor Lake's actual performance, it might just be the Time Spy GPU score.