Intel Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus

The Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus is a high-performance laptop chip from Intel's refreshed Arrow Lake HX lineup, launched in the first quarter of 2026. It is soldered to the motherboard, so you pick it by picking the laptop. It has 20 cores, 8 performance cores and 12 efficient cores, with 20 threads and no Hyper-Threading. The performance cores boost up to 5.3 GHz and the efficient cores up to 4.7 GHz, backed by 30 MB of Intel Smart Cache and 36 MB of L2 cache. It supports up to 256 GB of DDR5-6400 memory in two channels, 24 PCIe lanes with PCIe 5.0 support, and Thunderbolt 4.

With a 55 W base power and up to 160 W of turbo power, the 270HX Plus is made for gaming and creator laptops with serious cooling. Everyday work feels instant, and its 8 performance cores give it strong headroom for games, streaming, photo editing, video exports and code builds. Intel also lists a 45 W minimum assured power, so even slimmer designs have a guaranteed floor. How fast it feels in long jobs depends on how much sustained power the laptop maker allows.

The built-in Intel Graphics has 4 Xe-cores running at up to 1.9 GHz. It drives displays, video playback and everyday apps, but HX laptops are built around a dedicated graphics card, and that card does the gaming work. The Intel AI Boost NPU is rated at 13 TOPS. That covers Windows Studio Effects and light local AI tasks, but it falls short of the 40 TOPS NPU needed for Copilot+ PC features.

The 270HX Plus keeps the 8 performance core and 12 efficient core layout of the Core Ultra 7 265HX and 255HX, with a 5.3 GHz boost, so it is a refresh rather than a new design. The Core Ultra 7 251HX costs less and drops to 6 performance cores. The Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus adds 4 more efficient cores and 36 MB of cache for heavier multi-core work. The previous-generation Core i7-14700HX uses Hyper-Threading on its performance cores, and AMD's Ryzen 9 9850HX brings 12 full-size cores with 24 threads. The comparison pages below show each spec side by side.

Yes, if you want a fast gaming or creator laptop and do not want to pay extra for a Core Ultra 9. For gaming, the graphics card still matters more than the processor, so look closely at the GPU, at least 16 GB of dual-channel DDR5 memory and the cooling design. If you run long renders or heavy multi-core work every day, the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus or a Ryzen 9 HX laptop is worth a look. If battery life, low weight or Copilot+ features come first, an HX chip is the wrong choice, so look at Core Ultra 200V, Panther Lake or Ryzen AI 300 laptops instead.