Core i5-4200U: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i5-4200U is a fourth-generation Haswell processor from 2013, the low-voltage dual-core that powered a generation of corporate ultrabooks. Eleven models in the catalog carry it, and it meets the recommended CPU requirement in 0 of the 69 games the catalog tracks. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs, what it brings, and which laptops carry it.

Where the Core i5-4200U sits in 2026

A catalog score of 20.9 places the chip 449th of 741 scored laptop CPUs — the lower half of the table. The neighborhood mixes budget parts across a decade: the Core Ultra X9 388H, Core i5-4330M and Core i3-5020U sit just above, the Pentium Gold G5420T and Core i3-5015U alongside, and the Core i5-7200U just below. Trading places with a 2017 Kaby Lake i5-7200U in the score column is a reminder that these normalized numbers compress very different generations.

What the chip brings

Haswell gives the i5-4200U two cores and four threads on a 22 nm process, rated at 15 W. It clocks 1.6 GHz base with a 2.6 GHz turbo — modest numbers even for its era, chosen for battery life over speed. Graphics come from the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4400, and public benchmarks confirm the entry-level positioning: Geekbench single-core 729, multi-core 1,399, PassMark 2,180.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for 0 of 69 cataloged games. It does meet the minimum CPU requirement for fourteen older or lighter titles — Minecraft, Valorant, Dota 2, League of Legends, Sims 4, Grand Theft Auto V, Batman: Arkham Knight and Civilization 6 among them — while everything from Fortnite to Cyberpunk 2077 sits below minimum. These verdicts are CPU-only — the laptop's GPU and RAM decide actual playability — but this chip was never a gaming proposition.

Laptops that carry it

The 11-model roster is classic 2013–2014 business hardware: Dell's Latitude E5540, E5440, E7240 and 3440, Lenovo's ThinkPad L440, T440, T440s, X240 and X1 Carbon (2nd Gen), HP's EliteBook Folio 1040 G1, plus the HP 350 G1. Prices where listed run from $130 to $227. Roster medians describe the fleet honestly: a performance index of 33.2, office comfort at 30, energy efficiency 54.7 — but a portability index of 60.5, because these thin corporate machines were built to be carried, not to crunch numbers.

Bottom line

The Core i5-4200U suits a buyer who wants an extremely cheap, light laptop for writing, browsing and email — the ThinkPad and Latitude shells around it were premium-built and still feel fine. For gaming or any demanding modern workload the numbers rule it out: zero recommended-tier games and 2013-class throughput. Treat it as a budget office machine and it behaves; expect more and it will not deliver.