Anyone experiencing poor performance on the Core Ultra 7 165U with Intel Graphics?

[Sypa]

I'm currently using a Dell Latitude 5450 recently purchased back end of September 2024 with a Core Ultra 7 165U and integrated Intel Graphics, running Windows 11. While it handles light tasks decently, I'm trying to understand how to optimise performance, as it's been somewhat unpredictable especially under load, where even everyday tasks occasionally show lag. 

One area that consistently struggles is Microsoft Teams particularly during screen sharing at 1080p or 2K. Frame rates drop noticeably and sometimes even freeze. Has anyone found tweaks or workarounds that help in this scenario?

Another curious behaviour is CPU-related: when launching applications, all cores briefly spike to 100% for about 10 seconds. Under sustained load, clock speeds drop to around 1.79 GHz. I did see some improvement after switching the BIOS thermal setting from Optimized to Ultra Performance.

Interestingly, while the system reports 14 cores (in windows task manager), only 12 appear active during use though Docker recognises all 14 as available. Is this a scheduling quirk or something else?

On the graphics side, performance has been underwhelming. The NPU seems to be inactive or underutilised in most daily workloads even when using Microsoft Copilot, LM Studio or GPT4All. The integrated GPU performance struggles, particularly during video decoding.

I've also run into an odd issue where MP4 playback in Chromium-based browsers occasionally turns pixelated or green—especially when the GPU load is high. Switching the colour format to YCbCr 4:4:4 via Intel Graphics Control Panel helped restore normal playback, so that’s a potential workaround.

Lastly, recording animated content with OBS results in very pixelated output when saved as MP4.

I've attached some reproducible examples for context.

Would appreciate any insights or tuning tips others may have explored. Thanks in advance!