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Intel Core i3-1215U
An entry-level Alder Lake-U chip with two performance cores and four efficiency cores for budget thin-and-light laptops. It covers browsing, office work and light multitasking comfortably, but was never built for rendering, compiling or sustained multi-core loads.
Pros
- Inexpensive and common in budget thin-and-light laptops
- Six cores handle light multitasking better than old dual-cores
- Low 15W base power suits fanless, compact chassis
- Broad memory support including DDR5 and LPDDR5
Cons
- Weakest multi-core performance of the Alder Lake-U mobile line
- 64-EU UHD graphics is the most basic Alder Lake-U iGPU
- Only four efficiency cores limits background multitasking headroom
- Sustained clocks drop quickly in thin, budget chassis
Below average
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core i3-1215U
General
- Announced
- 2022
- Process
- 10 nm
- Base TDP
- 15 W
- Max TDP
- 55 W
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 6
- Performance cores
- 2
- Efficiency cores
- 4
- Threads
- 8
- Base clock
- 1.2 GHz
- Boost clock
- 4.4 GHz
- L3 cache
- 10 MB
Integrated GPU
- iGPU
- Intel UHD Graphics (64 EU)
- iGPU clock
- 1,100 MHz
Memory
- Memory support
- LPDDR5-5200 / DDR5-4800 / DDR4-3200 / LPDDR4X-4267
- Max memory
- 64 GB
Benchmarks
- Geekbench 6 (single)
- 2,082Bottom 24%
- Geekbench 6 (multi)
- 5,213Bottom 10%
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 1,512Bottom 32%
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 5,182Bottom 16%
- PassMark
- 10,082Bottom 20%
- 3DMark Time Spy Graphics (iGPU)
- 1,067Bottom 39%
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core i3-1215U good in 2026?
The Intel Core i3-1215U earns an Inno Score of 45.4/100 (“Below average”) based on its specs and benchmark results. An entry-level Alder Lake-U chip with two performance cores and four efficiency cores for budget thin-and-light laptops. It covers browsing, office work and light multitasking comfortably, but was never built for rendering, compiling or sustained multi-core loads.
Does the Intel Core i3-1215U count as "Core i7 or equivalent"?
Its PassMark CPU Mark average is 10,082 (cpubenchmark.net, retrieved Sep 26, 2026), which puts it in Tier C of our CPU tier checker: older or low-power Core i7, and many recent Core i5 chips. Requirement pages word this differently, so check the exact wording with your department.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core i3-1215U?
Cores: 6 · Threads: 8 · Boost clock: 4.4 GHz · Base TDP: 15 W
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core i3-1215U?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are Intel Core i5-13420H, AMD Ryzen 7 5700U, Intel Core i7-1185G7 — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.
