Normally CPU performance increases with newer generations but, according to a new leak, the upcoming Intel chips may be going against the grain.
A new leak reveals that the Intel Arrow Lake desktop lineup may have a clock speed of up to 5.5 GHz, much lower than its current flagship Intel Core i9-14900KS which can reach up to 6.20 GHz, according to tech leaker MebiuW on Weibo (reported on by Wccftech). Apparently, the upcoming flagship Core 9 Ultra 285K could face a potential drop of 700MHz compared to its predecessor, which is rather large.
Of course, if Intel’s architectural improvements are large enough, then clock speed may not be nearly as important as in past generations. But MebiuW has a response to that proposal and it doesn’t look good for Intel if true. It seems that the single-core performance of the 285K might not be greater than 12% of the 14900KS’s. In other words, while the former might be a little faster, it won’t be by much.
Why this could be a good decision
Intel has been struggling to compete with AMD for having the best processors for gaming. There have been widespread reports of 13th and 14th-Gen Core i9 CPUs crashing while playing games, and in some cases even refusing to boot up Windows 11. In response, the manufacturer has asked motherboard makers to limit power settings to reduce energy consumption.
Intel usually relies on its processors’ fast clock speeds to give them the performance edge against AMD’s. But If the leaks concerning the Intel Arrow Lake end up being true (which it hasn’t been confirmed by Intel in any official capacity yet), then the manufacturer lowering clock speeds on its chips could be directly related to this issue.
Team Red has already demonstrated that clock speeds aren’t necessary for solid gaming performance, as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is incredibly fast in its own right thanks to its large stack of L3 cache. So this easily could be a case of Team Blue taking a page from its competitor’s book while preventing the same mistakes plaguing current and last-gen chips from repeating itself in the new gen.
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Intel’s Arrow Lake processors are inbound for desktop PCs and should land later this year, and we’ve just caught a leak about how these chips might be named.
This comes from one of the more regular leakers on X (formerly Twitter), and as ever, sprinkle a whole lot of seasoning on the claims.
The theory from leaker Raichu (via VideoCardz) is that the first launches for Arrow Lake will be the 285K, 265K, and 245K – which should be the equivalent of the Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs from the current-gen range (Raptor Lake Refresh).
So, the initial Arrow Lake CPU names could run as follows:
Core Ultra 9 285K
Core Ultra 7 265K
Core Ultra 5 245K
After that, the non-K releases (meaning locked processors, ones that can’t be overclocked, unlike K chips) won’t use the same number – as has previously been the case, where the ‘K’ is simply dropped (14900K, 14900). These will be named entirely differently as the Core Ultra 275, 255, and 240 (VideoCardz theorizes those would be Core Ultra 7 and Core Ultra 5 models).
There’s a further suggestion that we could get a Core Ultra 9 290K later on, which would be the equivalent of the ‘KS’ limited edition chips (14900KS).
The battle of the next-gen CPUs begins to take shape
(Image credit: Future)
If this is what happens, are these new names confusing? Well, they’re bound to sow some bewilderment among buyers initially, no doubt. For desktop CPUs, this represents a big change from the typical 14900K, 14700K and so on that we’ve been used to for a long time now.
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However, these names do make sense based on the naming scheme for Meteor Lake (laptop) CPUs, and it’s fully expected that Intel will shift over to its Core Ultra branding across all chips, not just those for laptops.
At any rate, while the names may change, and confusion may be rife for some, the underlying core specs shouldn’t. With next-gen Arrow Lake desktop processors, the top die should still run with 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, as is the case with Raptor Lake Refresh (and all recent generations).
As per another recent rumor, the other main die Intel will base Arrow Lake CPUs on has six performance cores plus eight efficiency cores – there’ll be a bunch of variants on both of these dies, as ever.
Arrow Lake seems to be in a bit of a strange place at the moment. Earlier leaks certainly suggested that these next-gen CPUs are going to be a massive performance leap for Intel – although that hype has died down somewhat (although it’s still far from extinguished).
What has surfaced more recently is doubts that Intel will get Arrow Lake out in a timely manner this year, with the prospect raised that these desktop CPUs may not hit the shelves until the very end of 2024.
Especially if Arrow Lake volume is wonky to begin with, as other speculation has indicated, and Zen 5 (Ryzen 9000) is more affordable. With all that considered, AMD could be in a prime position to threaten Intel’s places in our ranking of the best CPUs. Add your own skepticism here, naturally, but that’s the way things look to be shaping up now.
The glimmer of positivity here is that with the naming scheme being spilled, perhaps this is an indication that Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs aren’t as far off as some leakers seem to believe. Be even more cautious around that prospect, but still – we need all the good vibes around Arrow Lake that we can get, frankly. The keener the competition between these next-gen desktop processor ranges, the better things should be for the consumer, ultimately.
Intel’s Russian operations resulted in nil profit last year as a result of sanctions and restrictions imposed within the country by Western governments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, according to a recent Abachy report.
In a similar vein to its rocky year globally, the company’s two Russian entities, Intel AO and Intel Technologies, operated at a loss last year.
More broadly, the entire Intel business saw revenue drop by 14% to $54.2 billion in its financial year 2023, down from $63.1 billion in 2022.
Intel in Russia may as well not exist
Having boasted 741 employees in 2022, Intel AO reported just one employee and director last financial year – Alina Klushina. Intel Technologies, previously operating with 47 employees on the books, also ended up with just Klushina remaining.
In the weeks and months that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Intel started to wind down operations in the country to support affected citizens and adhere to newly imposed sanctions. However, more recently the company started to offer certain driver downloads on its Russian site, which it said was in line with fulfilling its warranty obligations.
Besides being a commercial opportunity for the California-based company, Russia also served as an important home for its Nizhny Novgorod research and development center – a site that became known for its work in software, AI, machine vision, 5G and IoT. After a 2020 revamp, the site alone employed around 1,000 workers.
Moreover, Intel’s cessation of trade in the country has not had the effect the company and sanctioning governments had hoped, with Russian customers still largely able to import from countries that have not imposed such sanctions.
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Given the codename “Sierra Forest”, that chip will be available in the second half of this year, while customers will have to wait until next year to get their hands on its more powerful “Granite Rapids” sibling.
Intel has now rebranded its Xeon family of processors, replacing the “Xeon Scalable” name, which first hit the market in 2017 with the Xeon Platinum 8100 series, with “Xeon 6.” This new brand will include the all-efficiency (E) Sierra Forest chip and the performance (P) Granite Rapid one.
Amplify performance signals
The Sierra Forest data center chip is the first with an architecture comprised entirely of efficiency cores (E-cores), designed to deliver boost performance of 5G workloads by 2.7 times per rack, according to Intel. When it arrives, Granite Rapids (with P-cores) will build upon the doubled vRAN workload processing capacity offered by Sapphire Rapids and increase performance even further via Intel AVX and vRAN Boost.
Both Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest variants share the same platform (including the chiplet-based design, sockets. memory, and firmware) and thus will use the shared Xeon 6 nomenclature, a move which Intel hopes will make everything clearer for customers.
The company says the “evolved” Xeon 6 branding will “tell a united Intel Xeon story,” “Ease customer navigation,” and “Amplify performance signals”.
Intel’s existing “Emerald Rapids” 5th-Gen Xeon Scalable Processor models won’t see a rebrand. It has been said with the current-gen Xeon product stack that Intel’s branding can be “more than a little confusing”, and the company obviously feels it’s best to start afresh with the new Xeon 6 brand and focus on making things simpler going forward.
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The MSI Claw, released in March 2024, has gotten plenty of negative attention thanks to its poor optimization at launch. But a new PC gaming handheld sporting an Intel processor is coming and may be the answer to Intel’s portable console woes.
The AOKZOE A2 Ultra has been confirmed to sport an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, according to a report from PCGamesN. This is the same processor powering the high-end models of the MSI Claw A1M, which received plenty of backlash due to its struggling with basic gaming tasks that its competition easily handles.
Unlike MSI, the company behind the device seems to have more experience with manufacturing PC handhelds, though, like the Steam Deck and nearly every other handheld in the market, it usually uses AMD processors. While we don’t know why AOKZOE made the switch to Intel, there’s a good chance that the AOKZOE A2 Ultra could be the redemption story that Intel needs right now.
MSI Claw was disappointing
As of now, there’s no clear reason why the MSI Claw is struggling. Our own preview of the handheld was beaming, praising its consistent and excellent performance with the limited games on hand. However, once in-depth reviews arrived, tales of subpar performance woes quickly spread.
These issues include some Intel-related updates refusing to install properly, the MSI Center’s inconsistent game launching, overheating issues, inconsistent performance, and more. Right now, the universal experience with this system seems to be frustration and disappointment.
And the problem is, we don’t know who’s to blame for this. Is it MSI’s manufacturing process, or architectural limitations with Intel processors? The answer will most likely be settled with the AOKZOE A2 Ultra once it launches, which makes this handheld incredibly vital for Intel to prove that its processor can stand against AMD’s in this market.
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New figures have claimed Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger saw a significant increase in his earnings in 2023, but it was still only just over half of what Lisa Su, CEO of rival company AMD, made.
According to MarketWatch, Gelsinger’s total compensation in 2023 was $16.86 million, a 45% increase from his 2022 earnings of $11.61 million, as revealed in Intel’s 2024 proxy statement. In contrast, Su’s total compensation for 2023 was $30.35 million, barely above her 2022 compensation of $30.22 million.
The increase in Gelsinger’s pay came despite an 18% drop in his salary to $1.07 million. However, the value of his stock awards increased to $12.43 million, and his non-equity incentive plan compensation jumped to $2.89 million. On the other hand, Su’s salary was $1.2 million, and she received $21.85 million in stock awards and $5.84 million in options.
What about Nvidia’s CEO?
Intel’s stock soared 90.1% in 2023, while AMD’s stock shot up 127.6%. However, as MarketWatch points out, since Gelsinger became CEO, Intel’s stock has tumbled 28.5%, while AMD shares have charged up 92.5%.
Interestingly, Gelsinger’s 2023 compensation was significantly lower than his 2021 total compensation of $178.59 million, which included “new-hire equity awards of a significant magnitude” of $140.43 million. This was done to ensure Intel could hire “the best leader possible.”
Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s total compensation for the fiscal year that ended in January 2023 was $21.36 million, down from $23.74 million the previous year. With Nvidia’s stock skyrocketing by 238.9% in 2023, it will be interesting to see his compensation for the latest fiscal year. As Tom’s Hardware points out, “Impressive stock gains have already propelled the leader of the green team into becoming the world’s 21st richest person.”
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Intel is a name that’s almost synonymous with the CPUs that power some of the best PCs and best laptops around today. Alongside AMD, Intel dominates a market that many argue it first cornered 45 years ago with the launch of its 8088 Micro-processor.
Released in 1979, this was the first major CPU that Intel produced that propelled the x86 architecture to the fore – and was ironically a successor to the first x86 CPU, called the 8086 Micro-processor, that had been made some years before.
Although only a minor improvement on the 8086, the 8088 Micro-processor has gone down in history – and is arguably what fuelled Intel’s rise to dominate a market for so many decades, according to IEEE Spectrum.
An iconic processor for an iconic PC
The Intel 8088 Micro-processor ran at 5MHz, representing a 50-times speed boost against the 4004 chip eight years before, and it included 29,000 transistors – which was more than 12 times the number in the former chip.
Nowadays, of course, the transistor count in chips – including the best graphics cards – is much, much higher. Nvidida’s H200 GPU, for example, which is used to train AI models, has 80 billion transistors. Elsewhere, the key innovation in the 8088 versus the 8086 was the use of a full 16-bit internal architecture but mated with an 8-bit data bus.
Without the 8088 we wouldn’t have the likes of the IBM Model 5150 – commonly known as the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) – which was one of the first machines to use it when it launched in 1981. The iconic IBM PC attributed its prominence to the power afforded by Intel’s then-powerful CPU, and paired it with 16KB or 64KB RAM, which was expandable to 640KB. IBM selected the Intel 8088 because Intel offered a much better price and could offer many more units, according to InfoWorld (1982).
The first microcomputer in the world – the Q1 – which is widely considered to have inspired modern PCs – also used the Intel 8088 Micro-processor. This machine had 16KB of memory and ran at 800kHz, and boasted a zany built-in orange flat-panel plasma display.
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Horizon Forbidden Westhas come to PC, and it’s given me another reason not to buy a PS5. I’ve bought every generation of PlayStation console since the OG model, but with Sony‘s shift to (belatedly) porting most of its exclusives to PC, it just doesn’t seem worth splashing out on a new console when I can just wait for the games I want to play to come to me.
So, I was very happy to hear that Horizon Forbidden West was going to be ported to PC. As a big fan of the original game, which I played on PS4, I’d been looking forward to playing it.
Of course, as a visually-impressive first-party game from Sony, I was also keen to see how it performed on our 8K rig. As you can see in the specs box on the right, our rig has remained largely unchanged for over a year. This is because it remains a formidable machine – and, crucially, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card that does the bulk of the work when gaming has yet to be beaten. It remains the best graphics card money can buy.
With rumors swirling that Sony is planning on releasing a more powerful PS5 Pro console in the near future that could target 8K resolutions through a mix of more powerful hardware and upscaling technology, Horizon Forbidden West at 8K on PC may give us an idea of the kind of visuals future PlayStation games may offer.
It also suggests what obstacles Sony will face if the PS5 Pro will indeed target 8K resolutions. Despite being almost two years old, the RTX 4090 GPU still costs more than its original launch price, hovering around $2,000/£2,000. While the PS5 Pro will likely be more expensive than the standard PS5, there’s no way it’ll be even half the price of Nvidia’s GPU – and that’s before you add in the cost of the other PC components required. Basically, you can’t currently buy an affordable 8K gaming machine that is priced for mainstream success. That’s the scale of the challenge Sony faces.
(Image credit: Future)
Spoilt for choice
One of the best things about Sony’s initiative to bring its games to PC, apart from giving me an excuse not to spend money I don’t have on a PS5, is that they usually come with an excellent choice of PC-centric options, including support for upscaling technology from Nvidia and support for ultrawide monitors.
Horizon Forbidden West continues this streak, and the PC port has been handled by Nixxes Software, which has handled many previous PlayStation to PC ports.
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This latest release is particularly noteworthy as not only does it support DLSS 3 for Nvidia RTX graphics, but it also supports competing upscaling tech in the form of AMD FSR 2.2 and Intel XeSS.
All three of these features allow the game to run at a lower resolution, with the images upscaled so that the game appears at a higher resolution, but without the additional strain on your PC’s graphics card.
This mainly allows less powerful GPUs to hit resolutions with graphical effects enabled that they usually wouldn’t be able to handle. It also allows the mighty RTX 4090 to reach the demanding 8K resolution (7680 × 4320) in certain games while maintaining a playable framerate.
By supporting the three major upscaling tools, Horizon Forbidden West gives users much more choice (both FSR and XeSS work for a range of GPUs, while DLSS is exclusive to recent Nvidia GPUs) – and it also gives me a chance to see which upscaling tech performs the best.
(Image credit: Sony)
First up: DLSS
First, I played Horizon Forbidden West at the 8K resolution of 7680 × 4320 and the graphics preset at ‘Very High’ – which is the highest quality on offer. With DLSS turned off (so the game is running at native 8K), my 8K test rig managed to run Horizon Forbidden West at an average of 32 frames per second (fps).
Considering that this is a graphically-intensive game and running at the highest graphics and at a resolution that’s pushing around 33 million pixels, this is very impressive, and is a testament to the raw power of the RTX 4090, the rest of the components inside the rig built by Stormforce Gaming, and the talents of Guerrilla Games (developers of the game) and Nixxes Software.
I feel that 30fps is the minimum frame rate for a playable game, so if you wanted to play Horizon Forbidden West at a native 8K resolution, that’s certainly possible. If you drop the graphics preset, then the frame rate will go up – though at the cost of graphical fidelity.
Of course, you don’t spend around $2,000 on a GPU to get 32fps in a game, so I turned on DLSS and set it to ‘Quality’, which minimizes the amount of upscaling performed to preserve image quality as much as possible. This led the average framerate to jump to 45fps, with a maximum frames per second of 60.7fps.
One thing to note with my results, which you can view in the chart above, is that because Horizon Forbidden West doesn’t have a built-in benchmark tool, I had to play the same section over and over again, using MSI Afterburner to record my framerate. I chose a section of the game with large open spaces, water effects and a combat encounter, and I tried to make each playthrough, lasting around eight minutes, as similar as possible. However, my playthroughs weren’t identical, as some things, such as enemy attacks, would change, and this explains why there are some discrepancies between results. Still, it should give you a good idea of the difference each setting makes.
Next, I turned ‘Frame Generation’ on. This is a new feature exclusive to DLSS 3 and Nvidia’s RTX 4000 series of cards. It uses AI to generate and insert frames between normal frames rendered by the GPU. The goal is to make games feel even smoother with higher, more consistent framerates while maintaining image quality.
As the chart shows, this gave the game another bump in frames per second. I then tested the other DLSS settings with Frame Generation left on.
With DLSS set to Ultra Performance, I hit 59.3fps at 8K – basically the 60fps goal I aim for in these tests, which offers a balance of image quality and performance. With Ultra Performance, the RTX 4090 is rendering the game at a much lower resolution, then using DLSS to upscale to 8K, and this reliance on upscaling can lead to an image quality that can suffer from a lack of sharpness and detail, and graphical artifacts. The good news is that DLSS 3 is a big improvement over previous versions, and the hit to graphic quality is far less noticeable these days.
So, thanks to DLSS, you can indeed play Horizon Forbidden West at 8K. But how does AMD and Intel’s rival technologies cope?
(Image credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)
AMD FSR 2.2 tested
AMD’s FSR 2.2 technology isn’t as mature as Nvidia’s DLSS 3, but it has a noteworthy feature that DLSS lacks: it’s open source and doesn’t just work with AMD graphics cards – Nvidia and Intel GPUs can make use of it as well.
This makes it far more accessible than DLSS, which is exclusive to new and expensive Nvidia GPUs, and for many people this flexibility makes up for any shortfall in performance.
As you can see from my results above, FSR 2.2 provides a decent jump in frame rates compared to running Horizon Forbidden West natively at 8K, though at each quality setting, it doesn’t quite keep up with DLSS 3’s results.
The best results I managed was with FSR set to ‘Ultra Performance’, where it hit 55.2fps on average. Below DLSS 3’s best results, but certainly not bad, and close to doubling the performance of the game compared with playing it natively.
As well as being unable to hit the same highs as DLSS 3, AMD FSR 2.2’s image quality at Ultra Performance isn’t quite as good as DLSS 3 at similar settings, with a few instances of shimmering and ghosting becoming noticeable during my playthrough.
(Image credit: Sony)
Intel XeSS results
Finally, I tested out Intel’s XeSS technology. While there is a version of XeSS designed to run with Intel Arc graphics cards, as with FSR you can use XeSS with various GPU brands, so there is yet another upscaling tool that gamers can try out. As with most things, the more choice there is for consumers, the better.
XeSS hasn’t been around for as long as DLSS or FSR, and as you can see from the results above, it wasn’t able to match either of Nvidia or AMD’s solutions. There’s no ‘Ultra Performance’ mode either, so XeSS hits its highest framerates with XeSS set to ‘Performance’, with an average of 50.6fps. This leads to a perfectly playable experience at 8K, but it’s noticeably more sluggish than when playing with DLSS at Ultra Performance.
However, it still gives you a decent fps bump over native 8K, and with Intel being one of the biggest proponents of artificial intelligence, I’m pretty confident that XeSS performance will improve as the technology matures. The fact that you can use it with GPUs from Intel’s rivals is also a big plus.
(Image credit: Sony)
Conclusion: DLSS for the win (again)
Once again, DLSS 3 has proved to be the best way of getting a game to run at 8K and 60fps with minimal compromises.
Not only did it allow the RTX 4090 to hit 59.3fps on average while playing Horizon Forbidden West, but it also looked the best with minimal impact to image quality.
This may not come as too much of a surprise – DLSS has been around for quite a while now, and Nvidia has been putting a lot of work into improving the technology with each release.
Also, while Nvidia’s preference for proprietary tech means you need the latest RTX 4000 series of GPUs to get the most out of it, this does at least mean Team Green can make use of exclusive features of its GPUs such as Tensor Cores. With AMD and Intel’s more open implementations, they are unable to target specific hardware as easily – though FSR and XeSS are available to a much wider range of PC gamers.
And, while FSR doesn’t quite match DLSS performance with Horizon Forbidden West, it comes close, and if you don’t have an Nvidia GPU, this is a fine alternative. As for XeSS, it shows plenty of promise.
So, upscaling tech has made gaming at 8K on PC achievable, and it’s great to see increased choices for users. So, if Sony is indeed working on a PS5 Pro that aims to run games like Horizon Forbidden West at 8K, it’s going to have to come up with its own upscaling tech (or adapt FSR or XeSS) if it wants to compete.
Asus first revealed the Asus ROG NUC back at CES 2024, and now more information on the pricing and a release date is coming out regarding the small form factor gaming PC, which could easily be one of the best gaming PCs in the market.
Thanks to a pre-order listing at European retailer Proshop, and reported on by PC Gamer, we now know that the mini-gaming PC will run you €2,500, which translates to about $2,700 for the high-end configuration, though it likely won’t cost that much in the US. That version includes an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H CPU and RTX 4070 GPU, as well as 2x16GB of DDR5 memory and 1TB SSD of storage. According to that same listing, it’s set for an April 10, 2024 release.
The Asus ROG NUC can house up to 64GB of DDR5 SO-DIMM memory, three PCIe Gen 4 SSDs, and it has Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5GB LAN, and Thunderbolt4 / USB4. It also supports up to four displays: DP 2.1, dual DP 1.4a, and a single HDMI port.
As steep as that retail price is, there is a more affordable option for those unable to handle that high a price point, if Asus’s product page for the PC is accurate. A lower-spec version comes equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and RTX 4060 GPU, which should reduce the cost well enough.
The pricing could really hurt the NUC series
The ROG NUC is the first of the Asus NUC that has been announced after the reveal of the partnership between it and Intel. Two other products shown during CES 2024 are the Asus NUC 14 Pro and NUC 14 Pro+. According to their agreed terms, Asus can sell and support 10th to 13th Gen NUC product lines, giving Asus a non-exclusive license to design systems.
The mini-gaming PCs are rather cool with some pretty impressive components and parts, as we saw with the Asus ROG G22CH (which is Asus’s version of the Intel NUC 13 Extreme). Not to mention, the fact that you can connect up to four displays to a small PC is quite awesome considering that many other normal-sized desktop PCs and laptops can’t do the same.
However, the pricing is the major issue with this line of mini-rigs. For the same amount of money, you could build a PC with the same or superior specs, or tone down the components and create a much more affordable gaming PC instead.
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It’ll be a hard sell for most gamers, even with the selling point of the NUC series being a small form factor.
If you like the look of Apple‘s MacBooks but prefer or simply require the Windows ecosystem, well, you can do a lot worse than the new Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro. Like its predecessor, the very similar Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro, it owes its overall look and feel to the MacBook.
Thanks to its sleek wedge-shaped chassis, it’s most similar to Apple’s now defunct MacBook M1 Air in terms of design. But for features and performance it probably falls somewhere in between the newer and boxier MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) and the base model MacBook Pro 14-inch.
Available in both 14-inch and 16-inch formats, this 14-inch model has both advantages and weaknesses compared to Apple’s alternatives. The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro’s OLED screen is a definite highlight with incredible image quality plus 120Hz refresh. It also supports touch input. Apple simply can’t compete.
On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro’s speakers disappoint and its trackpad is merely OK. Apple definitely does those things better. As for performance, it’s a close-run thing compared to the Apple M2 chip, though the latest M3 is arguably a step above. You get Intel‘s hot new Meteor Lake CPU in Intel Core Ultra 7 155H configuration with six performance cores and eight efficiency cores.
Samsung says the new Intel chip improves the Galaxy Book4 Pro’s already impressive battery life by about 10% and we found you can get nearly 14 hours of video playback and over 11 hours of more intensive use. Put simply, this laptop offers genuine all-day longevity.
On the downside, the design is definitely derivative, the speakers are very disappointing and the trackpad is merely OK. But overall, this isn’t just one of the best Windows alternatives for MacBook fans. It can take the fight to any competing laptop in our best laptop 2024 guide.
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Price & availability
How much does it cost? $1,449 / £1,599
Where is it available? Available in the US and UK
Priced at $1,449 in the US and £1,559 in the UK for the entry-level model with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro is definitely premium priced but it’s not outrageously expensive. It’s a little pricier than a comparably specced MacBook Air, but cheaper than the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro.
On the other hand, Dell‘s XPS 13 can be had with the same Meteor Lake CPU with matching memory and storage specs for a little less money, and the XPS 14 for about the same money.
However, the XPS 13 can’t be had with an OLED display and with the XPS 14 an OLED panel can be configured, but adds $300 / £200 to the price. All of which means the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro isn’t cheap, but it does still offer a strong value proposition.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Specs
The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro comes in two configurations, 14-inch and 16-inch versions.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
These are the specs for the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro
312.3 x 223.8 x 11.6 mm (12.30 x 8.81 x 0.46 inches)
355.4 x 250.4 x 12.5 mm (13.99 x 9.86 x 0.49 inches)
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Design
Good build quality
Apple-derivative design
Very portable
There’s no denying it. The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro wouldn’t look like it does were it not for the Apple MacBook and more specifically, the MacBook Air and its wedge-shaped chassis. The Galaxy Book4 Pro is awfully, awfully similar, from the tapering chassis thickness to the keyboard design, the look of the trackpad, and the way the screen lid hinges and closes.
Samsung has also come pretty close to matching Apple’s signature build quality and engineering. The keyboard bed is super rigid and the chassis feels strong even if the way the various parts fit together doesn’t quite match Apple’s peerless precision.
There are other details where Samsung can’t match Apple. The Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro’s speakers don’t even come close to those of the MacBook Air, let alone the MacBook Pro. That’s a real pity and it’s hard to understand why Samsung can’t give this laptop high sound quality to match the stunning OLED screen. That display, of course, is a touchscreen, which adds an extra string to this Windows laptop’s bow that no MacBook offers.
The trackpad, meanwhile, is fine by Windows laptop standards, but isn’t quite as precise and satisfying to use as Apple’s haptic trackpad. On the other hand, Samsung has managed to offer better port selection than the MacBook Air. Along with a pair of Thunderbolt USB-C ports, you get a legacy USB-A, a full HDMI socket, microSD, and a headphone jack.
That’s impressive given the compact form factor which comes in at just 11.6mm thick and 1.23kg. This is an extremely portable laptop, a fact that’s only helped by the teeny-tiny 35W USB-C power adapter.
So, this is a very nicely designed and engineered machine on pretty much every level. Among Windows laptops, few if any are better built. But it is, ultimately, a pretty derivative machine in aesthetic terms. Dell’s XPS portables are much more distinctive, while Apple’s MacBooks are ultimately the real deal.
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Performance
Intel Meteor Lake CPU is punchy
OLED screen is stunning
Good storage performance
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Benchmarks
Here’s how the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
Intel’s new Meteor Lake CPU isn’t a radical step forward for performance. But it does deliver all the performance you could reasonably ask for in a thin and light laptop like this.
The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H gives you six meaty Performance cores running at up to 4.8GHz, plus eight Efficient cores capable of 3.8GHz. For day-to-day tasks like web browsing and content consumption, the combination of the Intel chip plus 16GB of fast DDR5 memory and a really quick Samsung SSD makes for an ultra-speedy and responsive experience.
But you also have plenty of performance in hand for some pretty serious workflows like image and video editing. Really, the only limitation involves graphics performance. The new Intel Meteor Lake CPU has a good integrated graphics processor. But it can’t quite match that of the integrated GPU in AMD‘s competing Ryzen laptops APUs and it isn’t up to the job of playing modern PC games.
Of course, you can get similar performance from a whole slew of Windows laptops that offer Intel’s new Meteor Lake chips. But it’s still impressive to experience this level of performance in such a compact and portable laptop.
Another highlight is the AMOLED screen. It’s just so vibrant and offers perfect per-pixel lighting control, so the HDR experience is truly spectacular. No LCD screen, even one with local dimming, comes close. It’s also much brighter than comparable desktop OLED monitors. What’s more, it runs at 120Hz for extreme smoothness and responsiveness and has touchscreen functionality.
(Image credit: Future)
The only slight flaw involves the screen’s dynamic refresh mode. It can switch between 60Hz and 120Hz on the fly and according to application demand. The idea is that running at 120Hz increases battery load, so the screen only steps up to 120Hz when significant on-screen motion is detected. We noticed very occasional stutters that may be related to this feature. It’s not a major flaw and, in any case, you have the option of running in conventional 60Hz and 120Hz modes.
Overall, our only significant reservation regarding the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro’s performance is those aforementioned speakers. By Windows laptop standards, they’re OK. But if you are familiar with Apple’s MacBooks and thinking of making the switch, you’ll be very disappointed.
Where watching movies and video content on MacBooks, perhaps while on holiday, is a really enjoyable experience, thanks to some great speakers, on the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro you’d have to bring an additional Bluetooth speaker to get a similar experience. That’s a pity.
Performance score:4 / 5
(Image credit: Future)
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Battery life
Even better than before
Genuine all-day battery life
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro already had great battery life. With the upgrade to Intel’s latest CPUs, it just got better. For movie and video playback, you’re looking at the thick end of 14 hours, more than enough for pretty much any plane flight.
Even under heavier loads browsing the web and undertaking more demanding workflows, well over 10 hours is possible. That means with light and occasional use, you’ll get multiple days out of this laptop. And when you’re getting important work done, you can rely on it lasting all day away from the mains.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro?
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Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro
Attributes
Notes
Rating
Price
There are certainly cheaper laptops. But as an overall value proposition given the build quality, performance and feature set, this the Galaxy Book4 Pro is very appealing.
4 / 5
Design
The aesthetic is definitely derivative of Apple’s MacBooks. But this is a beautifully built, eminently portable machine. It also squeezes good connectivity into its modest footprint.
4 / 5
Performance
Intel’s new Meteor Lake CPU is used to very good effect here. There’s more performance than the vast majority of users will ever need with the exception of gaming.
4 / 5
Battery
The Galaxy Book4 Pro’s predecessor had good battery life. This new model is even better thanks to Intel’s latest CPU. All-day operation away from the mains is no problem at all.
4.5 / 5
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro: Also consider
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Component
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro 14-inch
Dell XPS 13 Plus
MacBook Air 15-inch M3 (2024)
Price
$1,449 / £1,599
$1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,339
$1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,199
CPU
Intel Core Ultra 7 155H
Intel Core i7-1280P (14-core)
Apple M3 (8-core)
GPU
Intel Arc integrated graphics
Intel Iris Xe
Integrated 10-core GPU
Screen
14-inch, 2880 x 1800 AMOLED
13.4-inch, 3,456 x 2,160, 60Hz, OLED, Touch, Anti-Reflect, 400 nit
15.3-inch, 2880 x 1864 Liquid Retina display, 500 nits brightness, wide color P3 gamut
312.3 x 223.8 x 11.6 mm (12.30 x 8.81 x 0.46 inches)
11.63 x 7.84 x 0.60 inches (29.54 x 19.91 x 1.52 cm
13.40 x 9.35 x 0.45 inches (340 x 212 x 15.6mm)
If our Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro review has you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider…
How I tested the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro
I tested the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro for a week
I used it both on a desk and while travelling
I used the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro as my main workhorse for a week, including as a desktop machine plugged into monitors, when on the move, lounging on the sofa, the works.
That gave me a good idea of how it coped with all kinds of tasks, how portable it is and how well the battery lasts in the real world (spoiler, it lasts really well). I have a MacBook Air of my own, so it made for an intriguing comparison. And I have, of course, been testing and reviewing laptops since the early Mesozoic period, so I have plenty of context to draw on.
