Intel's "Bartlett Lake-S" (Performance) P-Core-only processor design has made a surprise appearance, after a long period of developmental silence. Earlier, today X86 is dead&back put a spotlight on the intriguing entry of Team Blue's unreleased "Core 7 253PE" SKU within PassMark's CPU benchmark database. The keen watcher of not-yet-released PC hardware believes that this particular unit is possibly the first sample of Team Blue's 10-core "Bartlett Lake-S" variant to appear in the wild. This further refinement of 14th Gen " Raptor Lake Refresh " tech popped up a few times last year, but the TechPowerUp news archive shows a dry period during third and fourth quarters. An August report alluded to an embedded market target, the existence of a flagship 12 P-core model, and a potential launch under the "Intel Core Series 2" banner—minus an Ultra tag, due to lack of onboard NPUs.

All "Raptor Cove" P-Core configurations could appeal to budget-conscious PC gamers. Efficiency-oriented (E and LPE) units are considered superfluous for these purposes. X86 is dead&back was pleased to find PassMark data that signalled improved multicore performance over the related Core i5 14400 "Raptor Lake-R" processor. They exclaimed: "Core 7 253PE (has) more MT performance than Core i5 14400 (6P + 4E)!" Their comparison shows a 20.6% uplift here, but a slight regression in terms of single-core scores (-2.73%). The sole "Core 7 253PE" sample's PassMark multi-thread rating, of 31802, closes in on the 14-core (6P + 8E) Core i5-14500 model's tally (31121). According yesterday's PassMark diagnostic, the newer chip utilizes Intel's UHD Graphics 770 integrated solution (akin to Core i5-14500), whilst the Core i5 14400 makes do with the UHD 730 iGPU. There are apparent differences across the various levels of cache, but the "Core 7 253PE" SKU seems to enjoy a larger overall pool—36 MB—when cross-examined with its older relatives.