Intel hosted a special event in China this past weekend, during which the company officially launched its Core Ultra 200H and 200HX mobile processors (CPU) for laptops.
This high-end lineup is designed for gaming laptops, mobile workstations, and other premium systems that require more horsepower.
Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 chips were first announced at CES 2025, and Windows Central's Zachary Boddy was one of the first to test the Core Ultra Ultra 9 285H in one of MSI's spec laptops.
They were impressed with the Ultra 9 285H's single- and multi-core performance, overall efficiency, and especially the integrated GPU's newfound power.
However, at a time when Neural Processing Unit (NPU) performance is being so closely monitored, Intel's decision to offer only 13 TOPS of AI power — Copilot+ requires at least 40 TOPS — in its high-performance mobile chips left Boddy with mixed feelings:
That caveat is because Intel can claim that the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H is designed with AI in mind as much as it wants, but it will never be inside a Copilot+ PC.
Zachary Boddy
Launching such a powerful selection of mobile CPUs in 2025 without a more potent NPU was indeed a tad befuddling, but Intel has now demonstrated that even an NPU with 13 TOPS can be a boon while gaming.
It remains unclear if Intel plans to hold a similar formal presentation for Western outlets, but there's plenty of information here that can be gleaned from Chinese social media site Weibo (Wccftech picked up the story first).
Intel's AI Assistant boosts gaming performance and helps beat hard bosses
The big revelation from Intel's time on stage comes in the form of — you guessed it — AI performance uplifts thanks to the built-in NPU for local AI tasks.
Using Black Myth: Wukong as an example, Intel demonstrated the game running at 94 FPS with the Core Ultra 9 285HX's integrated GPU and AI Assistant working together.
With the NPU allowed to take over the AI Assistant and the GPU allowed to focus on graphics, frame rates climbed to 108 FPS.
That's not an insignificant uplift, and it shows how much better the NPU is at handling AI tasks.
Intel showed a third slide ticked at 103 FPS, showing how the system performs with AI Assistant completely disabled.
The 5 FPS difference is much less impressive, but AI Assistant isn't just there to boost performance.
Intel says its AI Assistant can also help you beat difficult bosses in certain games, again using Black Myth: Wukong as an example.
It appears as though AI Assistant supports real-time voice interaction and will act as a companion within your game, answering questions and giving hints.
This reminds me a lot of NVIDIA's Project G-Assist that launched last week. Hopefully, Intel's AI Assistant is in a much better state compared to G-Assist's broken launch. I look forward to testing it out.
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