Intel's entry-level 'Wildcat Lake' Core 3 305 CPU spotted on PassMark

Intel's Core 300 "Wildcat Lake" series has been making its way onto PassMark over the past few weeks, and now the entry-level Core 3 305 has joined the party. Wildcat Lake was officially launched by Intel earlier this year as the Core Series 3 family, a budget-focused mobile platform sitting below the Core Ultra 300 "Panther Lake" chips in Intel's lineup. Built on the Intel 18A node, it targets thin-and-light laptops and edge AI devices.

The Core 3 305 is one of the lower-end SKUs in the Wildcat Lake family. It is a 6-core, 6-thread chip with 2 "Cougar Cove" P-cores and 4 "Darkmont" LPE cores, no traditional E-cores, and a single Xe3 graphics core. The higher-end Core 5 and Core 7 SKUs instead get two Xe3 cores. It has 6 MB of L3 cache and operates within the same 15W/35W power envelope as the rest of the Wildcat Lake lineup.

On PassMark, the Core 3 305 posted a multi-threaded CPU Mark score of 15154 and a single-threaded score of 4011, based on a single submitted baseline from May 27, 2026. Keep in mind that with only one sample, the margin for error is high, so these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt for now.

That said, the results are quite interesting when stacked up against other CPUs. Compared to the Core 5 315, the lowest-end fully enabled Wildcat Lake SKU with two Xe3 cores, the Core 3 305 actually edges it out by a hair in multi-threaded performance, scoring 15154 versus 15077. That is less than 1% apart. The single-threaded result is also very close, with the Core 5 315 pulling slightly ahead at 4079 versus 4011 for the Core 3 305.

The more notable comparison is against Apple silicon. The Apple A18 Pro found in the MacBook Neo scores 11791 in the multi-threaded test, meaning the Core 3 305 leads it by around 22%. In single-threaded performance, the two chips are essentially tied, with the A18 Pro at 3999 and the Core 3 305 at 4011.

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The Apple A19 Pro is a closer competitor in multi-threaded performance, scoring 14807 compared to 15154 for the Core 3 305, which puts Intel ahead by around 2.3%. However, the A19 Pro pulls clearly ahead in single-threaded performance with a score of 5169, which is about 22% faster than the Core 3 305.

It is worth noting that the Core 3 305 is the entry-level chip in the Wildcat Lake family and only has a single Xe3 graphics core. The fact that it is already competing with and outpacing Apple's A18 Pro in multi-threaded workloads is quite encouraging. If this performance scales properly up the lineup, higher-end Wildcat Lake SKUs like the Core 7 350 could present a genuinely compelling challenge to future MacBook Neo configurations.

Of course, independent third-party reviews of actual Wildcat Lake laptops will be needed before drawing any firm conclusions.