Intel’s Raptor Lake Returns on Mobile as Core 200 HX
Intel’s recently announced Raptor Lake Next, a revival of the architecture it used for 13th- and 14th-generation CPUs, is also coming to mobile. These revived CPUs will have the same configuration as their 14th-generation counterparts and are likely to be power-hungry, but for gamers wanting high-end performance on mobile without the associated costs of new-gen chips and DDR5 memory, this could be one way to do it.
As DDR5 prices have ballooned under the shadow of AI infrastructure swallowing all available supply, some gamers have turned to older DDR4 as an alternative. In support of that, and capitalizing on a newly re-emerged market, AMD re-launched its Ryzen 5800X3D earlier this month. Intel is planning to bring back its Raptor Lake chips, and now it’s bringing them to the mobile segment, too.
Per industry insider and X user Jaykihn0, the new chips will use the same Core 200 (non-ultra) branding, with HX suffixation to differentiate them. It’s not clear how they’ll fit into the existing lineup of laptops, especially regarding pricing, but it sounds like there will be an expansive range of options.
The top Raptor Lake Next HX chip will have eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, giving it a total of 24 physical cores and 32 logic threads thanks to hyperthreading on the P-cores. Using the classic Intel 7 process node and no Low-Power Efficiency cores, these chips are likely to draw a lot of power—potentially as much as 55W on their own. That will mean that whatever laptops these chips ship in will likely be larger and specifically target gaming performance.
However, Intel’s 14th-generation CPUs have proven very capable of keeping up with the newer Core Ultra 200 chips in gaming performance. If Intel can offer laptops at lower prices with DDR4 and these older CPUs, with decent gaming chops, that could be enough in 2026.
But it all comes down to price. Is Intel going to sell these like the old-generation designs they are, or try to do what AMD is doing with the 5800X3D and charge new-chip prices?