Intel Achieves First, Only Full NPU Support in MLPerf Client v0.6 Benchmark

Intel announced it is the only company to achieve full neural processing unit (NPU) support in the newly released MLPerf Client v0.6 benchmark. The result marks the industry’s first standardized evaluation of large language model (LLM) performance on client NPUs. Intel’s measurements of MLPerf Client v0.6 show Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 2 processors can produce output on both the graphics processing unit (GPU) and the NPU much faster than a typical human can read.

“We are proud to lead the industry in enabling full NPU acceleration and industry-leading GPU performance for AI workloads on client PC platforms. This success reflects Intel’s deep hardware-software co-optimization and commitment to democratizing AI for PCs everywhere.” – Daniel Rogers, Intel vice president and general manager of PC Product Marketing

Why It Matters

With its Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processors, Intel is at the forefront of the AI PC evolution, offering unprecedented AI compute performance spanning the central processing unit (CPU), GPU and NPU.

MLPerf Client v0.6 measures four content generation and summarization use cases based on the Llama 2 7B model. Intel demonstrated leading performance across NPU and built-in Intel® Arc™ GPU.

Intel achieved the fastest NPU response time, generating the first word in just 1.09 seconds (first token latency), meaning it begins answering almost immediately after receiving a prompt. It also delivered the highest NPU throughput at 18.55 tokens per second, referring to how quickly the system can generate each additional piece of text, enabling seamless real-time AI interaction. Additionally, compared to competition, Intel showed GPU leadership in time to first token, starting faster than the competition and reinforcing its NPU and GPU end-to-end AI acceleration advantage.

About NPU Benchmarking on MLPerf

Developed collaboratively by MLCommons consortium members - including Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Nvidia and Qualcomm - MLPerf Client v0.6 extends beyond previous GPU-centric tests to now include dedicated NPU benchmarking.

Driven by close collaboration between Intel’s NPU hardware and OpenVINO™ software teams, Intel Core Ultra processors remain the only NPU to achieve complete NPU compliance in the final benchmark.

Testing Configuration

^{* All data measured as of April 28, 2025. See the press kit for workload and configuration details.}

^{Notices & Disclaimers}

^{Performance varies by use, configuration, and other factors. Learn more at intel.com/performance index. Performance results are based on testing as of dates shown in configurations and may not reflect all publicly available updates.  See backup for configuration details.  No product or component can be absolutely secure. Your costs and results may vary.}