Intel's 18-core Core Ultra 7 251HX is matching its 20-core siblings in early PassMark results

The first PassMark results for Intel's Core Ultra 7 251HX have surfaced. On paper, the chip technically sits below its siblings, but the results are surprisingly on par with them. Spotted by leaker x86deadandback, the 18-core Arrow Lake-HX processor is putting up numbers that land it remarkably close to, and in some cases ahead of, the 20-core Core Ultra 7 255HX and 265HX.

PassMark currently lists the 251HX at 48,713 points in multi-thread and 4,666 points in single-thread. That single-thread score puts it 2 to 3% ahead of both the 255HX and 265HX, while the multi-thread result also edges out both 20-core chips slightly.

Now, this is based on only two submitted samples so far, and PassMark itself flags the result as having a high margin of error given the limited sample size. The 255HX and 265HX have far larger result pools behind their averages. With all that in mind, treat this as an early signal rather than a settled comparison.

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The 251HX sits between the Core Ultra 5 245HX and Core Ultra 7 255HX in Intel's lineup, configured with 6 Performance cores and 12 Efficient cores for a total of 18 cores and 18 threads, 30MB of Smart Cache, a 5.1GHz boost clock, 55W base power, and 160W maximum turbo power. The chip launched roughly two months ago and has already shown up in several Lenovo and MSI gaming laptops.

That said, the 251HX is shaping up to be an efficient option for mainstream high-performance laptops. We have also seen the chip matching the multi-threaded Cinebench R23 performance of the 24-core Core i9-14900HX while being significantly more power-efficient. More results are needed before drawing firm conclusions, but for a chip with two fewer cores than its closest siblings, this is a strong opening result.