Intel's non-Ultra Core Series 3 processors are new silicon. That is not a small thing. For two consecutive generations, Series 1 and Series 2 non-Ultra chips ran on Raptor Lake, the same architecture Intel introduced in 2022 for 12th-gen Core. Buyers paid current prices for hardware two years behind the flagship.
The Core Ultra line, spanning Series 1 through the recently reviewed Series 3, carried all of Intel's meaningful architecture and process node advances. Non-Ultra buyers got rebranded leftovers. That bifurcation is now closed, at least for this cycle.
The full review is worth reading not just for benchmark numbers but for what this shift signals about Intel's midrange roadmap. If new silicon in non-Ultra chips becomes the norm rather than the exception, the calculus for budget laptop buyers changes substantially.
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