Intel Wildcat Lake chips cost a pretty penny, but tests show they can’t touch the MacBook Neo

Intel’s Wildcat Lake is the company’s attempt to go toe-to-toe with the Apple MacBook Neo. The chips are tiny, featuring two performance cores, four efficiency cores, and a mini integrated GPU, and they’re efficient enough to run completely without a fan. 

That’s a genuinely exciting proposition for a Widows user who wants a slim, quiet laptop, but doesn’t want to switch to a new operating system. But it’s not all moonlight and roses, as the new chipsets come with a big catch. 

How fast are these chips?

Let’s talk about performance first. According to Notebookcheck, benchmarks for the Core 5 320 have already appeared on Geekbench, and the results are decent but not mind-blowing.

It scores 2,564 in single-thread and 8,122 in multi-core performance. That makes it almost twice as fast as AMD’s budget Ryzen 5 7520U, which is a win. However, compared to the A18 Pro, it is considerably slower in both single-core and multi-core performance.

So, what’s the catch?

Intel has quietly listed the official chip prices, and they are, to put it gently, surprising. The Core 5 320 will cost $340, while the Core 7 360 clocks in at $426. 

For reference, the MacBook Neo costs $599 regular and $499 with a student discount. That means Intel’s base chip cost alone is more than half the cost of a regular MacBook Neo. 

So by the time these chips make it into a laptop, the final price will most likely be higher than the MacBook Neo. 

Is there any upside?

The big selling point here is the fanless design. Wildcat Lake runs at up to 11 watts without a fan and can push to 22 watts with one. That means laptop makers have real flexibility, and users get a quieter, slimmer device.

No Wildcat Lake laptops are available yet, and no manufacturer has confirmed pricing. When they do arrive, the chip cost suggests these won’t be bargain machines.