Core i7-1260P: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i7-1260P was the premium Alder Lake engine of the 2022 ultrabook class — 58 catalog models carry it. A 12-core, 16-thread design rated at 28 W with Iris Xe 96EU graphics, it meets the recommended CPU requirement in 35 of the 69 games the catalog tracks. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs, what it brings, and which laptops ship with it.

Where the Core i7-1260P sits in 2026

A catalog score of 50.8 places the chip 262nd of 741 scored laptop CPUs — the exact middle of a table spanning two decades of silicon. The neighborhood is a generational sandwich: the 2018-era Core i5-8400H (51) and i5-8300H (50.9) just above, a Xeon E3-1505M v5 (50.8) alongside, and the newer Core Ultra 7 155U (50.5) and Ryzen 3 4300U (50.4) just below. Trading blows with a four-year-older H-class desktops-come-laptops chip while fitting thin-and-light chassis is the 1260P's story — the P-series brought H-class core counts down to ultrabook power.

What the chip brings

Alder Lake-P is a 12-core, 16-thread design on a 7 nm-class process rated at 28 W: 2.1 GHz base and up to 4.7 GHz boost. The integrated Iris Xe graphics with 96 execution units was the strongest iGPU of its launch year and still handles everyday display work and light gaming duty. Memory configuration details were not captured for this chip, so the table above sticks to what the catalog verifiably holds: a PassMark overall score of 16,495.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for 35 of 69 cataloged games — Far Cry 5, Diablo 4, Flight Simulator 2020, Escape from Tarkov, Doom Eternal and God of War among them. A further 27 sit at the minimum tier: Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, Counter-Strike 2, The Last of Us Part 1 and Metro Exodus all list the chip above their minimum but below their recommended CPU requirement. Seven ask for more processor — Starfield, Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring and Fortnite among them. These verdicts are CPU-only — whether a game actually plays well depends on the laptop's GPU and RAM, and most 1260P machines rely on integrated graphics.

Laptops that carry it

The 58-model roster is a 2022–2023 business-and-ultrabook crowd. HP dominates the office side: EliteBook 840 G9 at $415, ProBook 450 G9 at $455, EliteBook 650 G9 at $476 and 860 G9 at $607, with Lenovo's ThinkPad E15 Gen 4 at $458. The consumer flank runs from Acer's Aspire 7 and Aspire 5 17-inch at $553 through Dell's Inspiron 16 5620 at $604 to the Samsung GalaxyBook 2 Pro convertible at $676, LG Gram SuperSlim 16 at $700 and HP Envy 17 machines up to $954. Roster medians describe the fleet: office comfort at a perfect 100 and energy efficiency at 86 — but a best-GPU-score median of just 15, because this chip almost always ships with integrated graphics.

Bottom line

The Core i7-1260P is a value sweet spot in the used-market 2022 premium class: full-size core counts, mature Iris Xe graphics and a deep, cheap roster of business laptops that were built to survive daily commuting. It clears the recommended CPU bar for half the game catalog, but the laptops carrying it are rarely gaming machines — check the specific GPU before buying for play. For work-first buyers, it remains one of the best performance-per-dollar chips of its generation.