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An Asus Zenbook UX5406S with a Lunar Lake-based Core Ultra 7 258V inside. [credit: Andrew Cunningham ]
Two things can be true for Intel's new Core Ultra 200-series processors, codenamed Lunar Lake: They can be both impressive and embarrassing.
Impressive because they perform reasonably well, despite some regressions and inconsistencies, and because they give Intel's battery life a much-needed boost as the company competes with new Snapdragon X Elite processors from Qualcomm and Ryzen AI chips from AMD. It will also be Intel's first chip to meet Microsoft's performance requirements for the Copilot+ features in Windows 11.
Embarrassing because, to get here, Intel had to use another company's manufacturing facilities to produce a competitive chip.