Intel's 'Wildcat Lake' Processor Shows Up on Benchmark Database, Could Rival A18 Pro Chip on MacBook Neo

Apple's MacBook Neo was launched in early March, during its four-day-long launch spree. The new laptop, introduced as a separate lineup from the MacBook Air and Pro series, is powered by the A18 Pro chipset, which also powers the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. The first low-cost MacBook model from Apple competes with Chromebooks and mid-range Windows laptops. Soon after its debut, Asus' Co-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) reportedly said that the MacBook Neo has shaken the PC industry, forcing companies to respond. Now, it appears that Intel has begun working on the rival to Apple's A18 Pro SoC, dubbed Wildcat Lake.

Intel Wildcat Lake Chip Reportedly Outperformed Apple's A18 Pro

An unreleased Intel Core 5 320 processor has been listed on the PassMark benchmarking platform. According to a TweakTown report, the listing belongs to the Intel Wildcat Lake Series 300 processor, which will likely compete with the new MacBook Neo's A18 Pro chipset. The Intel Wildcat Lake processor is shown to feature a six-core CPU, comprising two performance cores and four efficiency cores.

The Intel Core 5 320 processor managed to score 4,047 and 15,222 points on PassMark's single-thread and multi-thread performance tests, respectively. Among the 5,866 CPUs listed on the platform, Intel's unreleased processor ranks 1,248th and 190th in terms of multi-thread and single-thread performance. The two performance cores of the Intel Wildcat Lake reportedly delivered a peak clock speed of 4.6GHz.

According to the report, the unreleased Intel Wildcat Lake processor managed to outperform MacBook Neo's A18 Pro chipset by a significant margin. The MacBook Neo reportedly managed to score 11,993 points on PassMark's multi-thread performance test, which is 21.2 percent lower than the Intel 5 320's score.

In the past, the MacBook Neo has also appeared on the Geekbench benchmarking platform, scoring 3,980 points (single core) and 10,105 points (multi core). The SoC of the laptop was listed with a base frequency of 4.04GHz, while featuring 8GB of RAM.

To recap, the MacBook Neo was launched in India and other global markets on March 4 at a starting price of Rs. 69,900 for the base model featuring 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage, and Rs. 79,900 for the 512GB storage option. The laptop sports a 13-inch (2,408×1,506 pixels) Liquid Retina IPS display. Apple claims that the A18 Pro chipset is up to 50 percent faster at regular tasks than a Windows PC, powered by an Intel Core Ultra 5 processor.