Intel Core 5 315

The Core 5 315 is the lowest-clocked Core 5 in Intel's Wildcat Lake family, built on the Intel 18A process and soldered to the laptop motherboard. It has 2 performance cores that boost to 4.4 GHz and 4 low-power efficient cores that reach 3.3 GHz, for 6 cores and 6 threads. It supports up to 64 GB of DDR5-6400 or LPDDR5X-7467 memory over one memory channel, plus Thunderbolt 4 and 6 lanes of PCIe 4.0.

For browsing, email, documents, video calls and streaming, the two performance cores keep things responsive and the low-power cores handle background work efficiently. It is a small step below the Core 5 320, with slightly lower boost clocks on both core types and a slower graphics clock. Heavier jobs such as video exports or large code builds take a long time on a 6-thread chip with a 35 W turbo limit, so it is best kept to everyday tasks.

The integrated Intel Graphics has 2 Xe-cores running at up to 2.3 GHz. It supports AV1 encode and decode and up to 3 displays at up to 4K 60 Hz, which covers streaming, video calls and office work, but gaming is limited to very light or older titles. The NPU is rated at 15 TOPS and supports Windows Studio Effects. Copilot+ PC features need 40 TOPS or more, so they are not available.

Against the older Core 3 100U and Core 5 120U, the 315 moves to a much newer process and adds an NPU, while those chips keep more threads and a higher turbo power limit. AMD's Ryzen 3 210 has 4 cores and 8 threads with Radeon 740M graphics, and the Ryzen 5 220 steps up to 6 cores and 12 threads. Intel's Processor N150 is a cheaper, slower option for very basic laptops. The comparison pages below show each spec side by side.

It is a sensible pick for a low-cost laptop used for school, web apps, email and streaming, especially if the price is clearly below Core 5 320 models. Get at least 16 GB of memory, since the chip runs a single memory channel. If you need more speed for creative work or games, spend a bit more on a Ryzen 5 230 or a Core Ultra 5 laptop.