Intel Core Ultra 9 288V review: everything you need to know in six minutes

Intel has finally lifted the lid on its Core Ultra 200V series of chips. Codenamed Lunar Lake, Intel designed the new processors for supremely efficient performance (think long battery life) and to be true AI chips. So every member of the 200V family – Intel also refers to them as Core Ultra Processors (Series 2) – includes an NPU that meets Microsoft’s criteria for Copilot+ PCs.

My aim here is to produce a short, punchy Core Ultra 9 288V review so that you don’t need to wade through dozens of graphs and pages to get to what matters. Should your next laptop include a Core Ultra 200V chip inside or not?

Intel Core Ultra 9 288V review: what’s on test

So far, I’ve tested one laptop with a Core Ultra 288V inside. This is the updated version of Asus’ rather lovely Zenbook S 14 OLED, and it’s a great choice because it’s thin and light. I don’t expect to find any member of the Ultra 200V family in thicker laptops.

The other great news about the Zenbook 14 is that I’ve tested several Asus laptops recently with other chips inside, so I have a comprehensive set of benchmark results on which to draw. Not everything is the same – for example, they can’t match the 32GB of RAM in the new Zenbook – but it minimises variables such as how many watts are being fed to the CPU.

What particularly matters is that I tested all of these laptops in Asus’ Performance Mode, so the field is as even as I can make it.

Intel Core Ultra 9 288V benchmarks

I’ve split benchmarks into five sections: single-core tasks, multicore tasks, gaming, AI and battery life. The TL;DR here is “great, good, good, good and great”. Read on for details.

How fast is the Core Ultra 9 288V at single-core tasks?

Single-core tasks are where the Core Ultra 200V series excels. The Core Ultra 9 288V boosts up to 5.1GHz and includes numerous architectural improvements that mean it will be faster than the previous-gen Intel chip. The best comparison is Intel’s Core Ultra 100H series, represented below by the Core Ultra 7 155H.

I’ve used two simple CPU-based benchmarks: Geekbench and Cinebench R23. I didn’t use Cinebench 2024 as I don’t have comparison scores for older laptops. Both Geekbench and Cinebench focus their attention on the CPU rather than graphics or RAM.

The key news: the Core 9 Ultra 288V is neck and neck with the more power-hungry AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 in single-core tests. And quite a bit faster than the Snapdragon.

What about multicore tests?

Brute-force multicore power is the one area that Intel has sacrificed. And that makes sense, as how many people who buy thin-and-light laptops intend to spend most of their time in core-intensive tasks such as video editing and virtualisation?

Also note that while the the Core Ultra 9 288V falls behind its AMD and Qualcomm rivals in these tests, that doesn’t mean it’s slow or can’t complete such challenging tasks. It just isn’t a strength.

What’s particularly notable from this graph is that the Core Ultra 200V series sits between Intel’s low-power 1300U series and medium-power Ultra 100H series for multicore performance. It’s the one area where we don’t see a generation-on-generation improvement.

Is the Core Ultra 9 288V a great gaming chip?

My one-word answer to this is yes. But with a heap of caveats. It’s a great integrated gaming chip, which is one that sits in the same package as the CPU. That’s as opposed to a laptop that includes a discrete chip, usually from Nvidia, that is there to play games but also accelerates tasks in creative apps such as 3ds Max.

So, here’s how the new Core Ultra 9 288V compares to its Qualcomm and AMD rivals in 3DMark Time Spy. This includes theoretical elements, so arguably not as meaningful as the real games below, but it gives a good idea of respective power. It’s a big increase over the Core Ultra 7 155H too.

And here’s how the chips compare in “real” games (the Y axis goes from zero frames per second to 40 frames per second). It should be obvious that AMD and Intel are neck and neck here, but Qualcomm simply isn’t in the picture. Right now, its Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips are poor choices for gaming and 3D acceleration.

Note that I could get a 25% boost in frame rates for both AMD and Intel if I activated frame generation, but that isn’t shown in the above results.

I haven’t had time to test the laptop in every game, but can share Intel’s expected results (for the Core Ultra 7 258V) at 1080p Medium settings:

AI tests (tentative conclusions)

It’s a shame we haven’t yet invented odourful computing, as every claim a company makes about AI performance should come with a whiff of… well, you know what. AI is a nebulous term that stretches to cover whatever is fashionable that week, but what matters to laptop users is “will it make any difference in this AI task”. Where you replace “this AI task” with whatever you’re using at the time.

We do not have good AI benchmarks yet. Geekbench has just launched its Geekbench AI tool, and I use that for comparison below. I don’t have the older laptops here, just three recent laptops that are still kicking about in my office. I’ll include the graphs, however, so you have a comparison.

Right now, what matters is that the Core Ultra 9 288V includes a solid NPU that largely matches AMD and Qualcomm’s offerings. Intel’s advantage is that its GPU has the highest TOPS rating, and that handles a lot of so-called AI tasks as well.

Does the Core Ultra 9 288V live up to Intel’s battery life claims?

Ultimately, what perhaps matters most to Intel – and to many laptop owners – is battery life. This isn’t the easiest thing to measure, not least because every laptop is different, but all the tested models feature OLED panels and similarly sized batteries. You can see more details of the laptops at the foot of this article.

Below, you’ll see results based on PCMark’s Modern Office (Intel, AMD) and Essentials (Qualcomm Snapdragon) battery life test. These both mimic light office use and are very similar. I also use PCMark’s video-rundown test, although this didn’t work on the Snapdragon chip so I manually measured its life playing back a 1080p video instead.

All the results are with the laptops at 150 nits (roughly half the maximum brightness) and with Wi-Fi on. The results below are to the nearest hour.

Even with the imperfections of battery life testing, I think it’s pretty darn clear that, yes, the Core Ultra 9 288V lives up to Intel’s battery life claims.

Should your next laptop include a Core Ultra 200V chip inside or not?

Now, obviously I’ve focused on the Core Ultra 9 288V as that’s what is inside my test laptop. However, we know the speeds and specs of all the different Core Ultra 200V processors, and most importantly they all include four powerful P-cores and four efficient E-cores. Yes, the cheaper models will be slower, but they will all feel snappy, play games and last a surprising amount of time away from the mains.

So my answer to the question is, “yes”. Or to be more precise, if you want a thin-and-light laptop with superb battery life that can also play games and has guaranteed compatibility with Windows apps then yes, look for a Core Ultra 200V chip inside.

If you don’t play games, or need 3D acceleration in apps, then Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips remain a great choice. My only caveat to business buyers is that if you have custom apps then check them for compatibility first. Chances are you’ll be fine, but best to be safe.

Don’t write off AMD-powered laptops either. Even though they won’t last quite as long on battery (probably), they are far faster in multicore tasks. If performance is your number one thing, the Ryzen AI HX 300 series gets the nod for now.

But my main conclusion is this. We are entering a new and welcome era of laptops that genuinely last a full day’s work on a single charge, whether you buy AMD, Intel or Qualcomm. That’s the jam today. Then, come next year, or perhaps 2026, the fact they include NPUs could start to make a genuine difference to your day-to-day work.

Related articles

• Intel launches Core Ultra 200V series
• Intel unveils its battle plan for enterprise AI at Intel Vision 2024
• How will Intel’s AI PC help you work smarter?

Footnote on the other laptops tested

Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. Asus Zenbook S 16 OLED UM5606 with a 16in OLED panel, 2880 x 1800 resolution, and 32GB of RAM.

Snapdragon X1P-42-100. Asus Vivobook S 15 OLED S5507 with a 15.6in panel, 2,880 x 1,620 resolution, and 16GB of RAM.

Snapdragon X1E-78-100. As above, but with the faster X1E-78-100 chip.

Core Ultra 7 155H. Asus Zenbook 14 OLED UX3405MA with a 14in OLED panel, 2,880 x 1,800 resolution, and 16GB of RAM.

Core i7-1355U. Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED UX5304 with a 13.3in OLED panel, 2,880 x 1,800 resolution, and 16GB of RAM.