Core Ultra 5 245HX: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX brings the 2025 Arrow Lake-HX architecture into big performance laptops — fourteen cores at HX-class power — and five catalog machines carry it, from gaming rigs to mobile workstations. As a processor it meets the recommended CPU tier in 52 of the 69 games the catalog tracks. This guide covers its ranking, its specifications, and the laptops built around it.

Where the Core Ultra 5 245HX sits in 2026

A catalog score of 66 places the chip 113th of 741 scored laptop CPUs. The normalized neighborhood is older than the chip itself: the Core i7-11375H (66.5) and Ryzen 9 4900HS (66.5) sit just above, the Ryzen 7 PRO 5875U (66.1) just below, and the Ryzen 7 4800H, Ryzen 5 7530U and Ryzen 5 5600H (all 65.8) round out the bracket. As with other current-generation parts, the score compression at this altitude undersells the silicon — the throughput numbers tell the truer story.

What the chip brings

Arrow Lake-HX delivers fourteen cores and fourteen threads on a 3 nm process with a 55 W HX-class rating: 3.1 GHz base and up to 5.1 GHz boost. The integrated Arc Graphics 130T tile handles display duties, though the HX machines it ships in lean on discrete GPUs for real work. The headline number is a PassMark rating of 38,069 — far beyond anything in its normalized rank neighborhood and a better reflection of what fourteen current-generation cores at 55 watts deliver.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured as a processor alone, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for 52 of 69 cataloged games — Battlefield 5, Forza Horizon 5, Alan Wake 2, Counter-Strike 2, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, Metro Exodus, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Ghost of Tsushima, Black Myth Wukong and Returnal among them. A middle band clears minimum but not recommended: Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Fortnite, Hogwarts Legacy, Apex Legends and Red Dead Redemption 2. Only Starfield and Helldivers 2 sit beyond its reach. These verdicts are CPU-only — actual playability depends on the laptop's GPU and RAM, and the machines in this roster carry high-end discrete graphics that shoulder that side.

Laptops that carry it

The five-machine roster is 2025 heavy iron: Lenovo's ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 workstation at $1,760 and ThinkPad T16g Gen 3 business machine at $1,144, Dell's Pro Max 18 Plus and Pro Max 16 Plus gaming laptops at $1,440 each, and HP's ZBook Fury G1i 16 workstation at $1,760. The laptops built around it typically show a median best CPU score of 73.3, best GPU score of 66.9, a gaming index of 88 and a photo and design index of 89 — flagship-class numbers across the board. Median mobility of 29 and portability of 20.5 confirm these are desk-bound bruisers, not travel companions.

Bottom line

The Core Ultra 5 245HX is the value entry into current-generation HX performance: a 38K-class PassMark rating and fourteen modern cores inside laptops that start at $1,144 and carry serious discrete graphics. It suits buyers who want workstation or gaming muscle that will not feel outdated for years, and who have already accepted the weight and battery life that come with a 55-watt processor. Within its bracket the raw throughput easily justifies the price of admission.