Raptor Lake Benchmarks Give Intel Stock (NASDAQ:INTC) Healthy Boost

Chip stock Intel (INTC) needs winners right now, and it needs them pretty badly. It needs to win back lost market share from a growing number of competitors, whether it is the PC gaming market, the data center, or as part of integrated systems on a thousand different platforms. The good news, though, is there are some signs of life in Intel’s benchmarking sectors. This gave Intel a healthy boost, and shares were up nearly 3% in Monday afternoon’s trading.

A new benchmark test report emerged for the new Raptor Lake Refresh lineup, and the report suggests that they are looking quite sharp. A PassMark benchmark test revealed that the Intel Core 9 270H brought out 13.98% better performance than the Core i5 14500HX, particularly in single-threaded operations.

The Core 9 270H is actually somewhat unique, as it is only a 14-core central processor (CPU) with 20 threads. That puts it at basically the same level, core- and thread-wise, to a 14^th generation mobile Core i5 processor, and at a lot better performance, too. It boasts a slightly higher clock speed—2.7 GHz against the i5’s 2.6—and when cranked up fully, produces significantly higher maximum speeds, topping out at 5.8 GHz against the 4.9 GHz of the i5.

Taking Back the Data Center

Further, Intel is also making a play for the data center market once more as well. The new lineup of Xeon processors are on the way, as both Diamond Rapids and Clearwater Forest versions are set to hit in 2026, according to Intel Products CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus.

Reports note that Intel customers are already putting the Granite Rapids chips to work, and with the Clearwater Forest and Diamond Rapids chips poised to follow, that represents a welcome development as Intel will be able to follow up on its wins one after the next. With the 18A process coming into its own, and improving production accordingly, the Clearwater Forest line should be able to benefit from this, and get more of these chips into end users’ hands.

Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on one Buys, 26 Holds and four Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 35.1% loss in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $21.29 per share implies 3.17% upside potential.

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