Intel Core i5-6200U / i5-6300U 6th Gen ‘Skylake’ Mid-Range Laptop CPUs (Review)

The 6th Generation “Skylake” Intel Core i5-6200U, just like its slightly faster i5-6300U sibling, is a mid-range processor for mainstream laptops. This 6th Gen U parts offers better performance than the i3-6010U and are somewhat slower than the i7-6500U from the same CPU series.

Intel Core i5-6200U / i5-6300U 6th Gen Skylake PassMark CPU Benchmark

In comparison to its older 5th Gen “Broadwell” i5-5200U and i5-5300U equivalents, the i5-6200U and i5-6300U “Skylake” are only marginally faster. The same applies to their Intel HD 520 integrated graphics which replaces the HD 5500. On the positive side, the 6th Gen version provides a greater power efficiency and smoother high-resolution video playback, especially 4K content. The i5-6200U / i5-6300U is an excellent choice for the daily home and office tasks and casual gaming. It can be additionally used for more hardware demanding tasks like work in photo and video editing or graphics design programs. If these tasks are the main purpose of using your laptop, systems with a quad-core Intel i7 and preferably a dedicated video card are recommended.

Real World Use Review

We recorded a video (below) showing what performing usual computing tasks looks like on the Intel Core i5-6200U. The i5-6300U performs very similar, with almost unnoticeable boost over the 5200U. We reviewed multitasking, web browsing, video playback, Office document, image and video editing, and gaming capabilities. For the test, we used a Windows 10 Home-based HP Pavilion 15.6″ laptop with the i5-6200U, 6GB of RAM, a mechanical 500GB hard drive at 5,400rpm, and Full HD display. A typical 2015 / 2016 mainstream notebook. Please keep in mind the same CPU could perform somewhat different in other systems, depending on other hardware specs, such as RAM size, single- or dual-channel RAM setups, and storage speed, as well as cooling solution of each laptop.

Web browsing was simply flawless, even when you have multiple data-heavy web pages opened. The same applies to video playback, with some software-related exceptions. CPU usage during Full HD and Ultra HD (4K) video playback was almost unnoticeable, thanks to its hardware-based video decoding capabilites. Exceptions are 4K YouTube video playbacks in Google Chrome browser and 4K playback in VLC media player program, producing video stuttering and very high CPU load of up to 100%. The problem in Chrome can be fixed with h264ify browser extension, while in VLC player you’ll have to tweak video settings to make the playback smoother. As for work in the Office suite, the most popular apps – Word and Excel run perfectly. Although professional photo and video editing remains in the domain of the quad-core Intel chips, the i5-6200U provides decent performance for these tasks, too.

As for gaming, we made a separate review of the chip’s Intel HD 520 integrated graphics. In short, gaming performance is pretty much basic. But, you’ll be able to play many of the most popular games, such as League of Legends and Counter Strike GO on high graphics settings. You can even run some hardware-demanding titles like GTA V and Battlefield 4 if you dial down graphics quality. Keep in mind that some games require 8GB of RAM to work properly, so we had to upgrade it from 6GB to 8GB for testing purposes.

For a list of laptops with the 6th Gen Intel Core i5-6200U “Skylake” CPU, click here. The i5-6300U isn’t used in as many notebook models, but is included in the famous Microsoft Surface Pro 4 tablet.

Note: The benchmark scores of the listed processors are averages measured across various devices with these processors. The scores and real-world performance of the Intel Core i5-6200U and compared CPUs may vary depending on the notebooks' other components, settings, cooling, and other factors. However, the benchmark results are good indicators of the processors' performance.