Guide · Intel NPU (Core Ultra)
Intel NPU (Core Ultra) for Frigate: Benchmarks vs the iGPU
Frigate 0.17+ OpenVINO NPU inference times on Intel Core Ultra, compared with the same chips' integrated GPUs.
last reviewed 2026-10-19
newest Frigate 0.18.2Hardware in this guide: Intel NPU (Core Ultra) · Intel Core Ultra 7 265K NPU · Intel Core Ultra 7 265K iGPU · Intel Arc iGPU (Core Ultra 7 155H)
Frigate 0.17 added OpenVINO support for Intel NPUs: "for many models performance on NPU is similar to GPU but more efficient" (0.17.0 notes). The docs list the Intel 125H mini PC as including "NPU for more efficient detection in 0.17+".
Known issues and gotchas
- NPU leaves the iGPU free for enrichments like semantic search and face recognition (0.17 notes).
- Community: Core Ultra 7 265K NPU at 8.41 ms with ~0.3% detector CPU (db-154); 8–10 ms with up to 4 NPU detectors vs 25–30 ms each with 4 iGPU detectors on the same chip (db-147/148).
- RF-DETR is slower on NPU (40 ms) than on Iris Xe (33 ms) per docs.
Related
Live numbers for this guide's hardware
Generated from the database at build timeThe text above is written by hand and never contains numbers or prices. Everything below is pulled from builds.json and hardware.json when the site is built, so it stays current without touching the guide.
Intel NPU (Core Ultra)
AcceleratorOpenVINO (Intel)
Median inference
22 ms
all models · 6 usable builds
Capacity · estimate
~167 det/s
mobilenet-v2 median 6 ms · 1 detector
Cameras · estimate
39
5 fps · Typical · under 60% (66 before overload)
Price
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Intel Core Ultra 7 265K NPU
AcceleratorOpenVINO (Intel)
Median inference
8.71 ms
all models · 2 usable builds
Capacity · estimate
~115 det/s
unspecified median 8.71 ms · 1 detector
Cameras · estimate
27
5 fps · Typical · under 60% (45 before overload)
Price
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Intel Core Ultra 7 265K iGPU
AcceleratorOpenVINO (Intel)
Median inference
21.25 ms
all models · 2 usable builds
Capacity · estimate
~47 det/s
unspecified median 21.25 ms · 1 detector
Cameras · estimate
11
5 fps · Typical · under 60% (18 before overload)
Price
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Intel Arc iGPU (Core Ultra 7 155H)
AcceleratorOpenVINO (Intel)
Median inference
13 ms
all models · 1 usable build
Capacity · estimate
~77 det/s
yolo-nas-m · 256 median 13 ms · 1 detector
Cameras · estimate
18
5 fps · Typical · under 60% (30 before overload)
Price
not tracked yet
no retailer link listed
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