Intel Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus CPU Beats 245KF By 25% In PassMark, Priced At Budget-Friendy $174

Mar 20, 2026 at 08:55am EDT

Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus CPU has been benchmarked against its predecessor, offering a 25% boost at just $174.

Intel Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus With 18 Cores Offers 25% Speed-Up For The Same Price As The 245KF At Just $174

Intel's Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" CPUs will be launching on the 26th of March. Ahead of the launch, a new leak has appeared within PassMark, showcasing a big performance uplift in PassMark vs the predecessor.

Related Story Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus Drops To $259 At Microcenter, But Thermal Grizzly Is Asking Twice As Much For A Delidded Version

The Intel Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus is the successor to the Core Ultra 5 245KF. It features a total of 18 cores, which are a combination of 6 P-Cores based on the Lion Cove architecture and 12 E-Cores based on the Skymont architecture. The chip features a max boost clock of 5.3 GHz, and all-core boost clocks of 5.1 GHz for the P-Cores and 4.6 GHz for the E-Cores. The chip offers 30 MB of L3 and 36 MB of L2 cache, a 3.0 GHz D2D frequency, and 4Xe iGPU cores clocked at 1.9 GHz. The MTP is set at 159W.

Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus vs 245KF:

In terms of performance, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus CPU scored 4907 points in single-thread, and 53,977 points in the multi-core tests at PassMark. For comparison, the Core Ultra 5 245KF scores 4734 points in single-thread, and 43,227 points in the multi-core tests. This shows us a 4% uplift in single-core and a 25% uplift in multi-core tests thanks to those four extra cores on the Plus variant.

PassMark Benchmark
ST
MT
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
Core Ultra 7 265KF (20-Core)
4920
58533
Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus (18-Core)
4907
53977
Core Ultra 5 245KF (14-Core)
4734
43227
Ryzen 7 9700X (8-Core)
4650
37084
Ryzen 5 9600X (6-Core)
4570
30059

The performance improvement is very nice, and what makes it even better is that the 250KF Plus will be priced at $174 US, the same price as the 245KF. This makes it a compelling budget option for gamers, & especially the fact that Intel's Binary Optimization Tool is promising a decent uplift in games too. There are also plenty of sub $150 US LGA 1854 motherboard options on the market nowadays, which makes it a worthwhile option. The only downside is that DDR5 memory prices are crazy high, which affects both AMD & Intel PC builders.

Intel's Core Ultra 5 250KF Plus, along with the 250K and 270K, are headed for retail launch on the 26th of March, with reviews arriving slightly earlier on the 23rd. Expect to see the full performance details and how Intel's new Binary Optimization Tool helps enhance gaming performance for their Arrow Lake chips in the coming days.

Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" and Arrow Lake Refresh CPU Specs:

CPUCores/ThreadsBase Clock (P/E Core)Max Boost (P/E Core)Cache (L3 / L2)Memory SupportTDP (PL1 / PL2)Price (SEP)
Core Ultra 9 290K Plus24/24 (8+16)3.7 / 3.2 GHz5.8 / 4.8 GHz36 MB / 40 MBDDR5-7200125W / 250WCancelled
Core Ultra 9 285K24/24 (8+16)3.7 / 3.2 GHz5.7 / 4.6 GHz36 MB / 40 MBDDR5-6400125W / 250W$589 US
Core Ultra 7 270K Plus24/24 (8+16)3.7 / 3.2 GHz5.5 / 4.7 GHz36 MB / 40 MBDDR5-7200125W / 250W$299 US
Core Ultra 7 265K20/20 (8+12)3.9 / 3.3 GHz5.5 / 4.6 GHz30 MB / 36 MBDDR5-6400125W / 250W$394 US
Core Ultra 7 265KF20/20 (8+12)3.9 / 3.3 GHz5.5 / 4.6 GHz30 MB / 36 MBDDR5-6400125W / 250W$379 US
Core Ultra 5 250K Plus18/18 (6+12)4.2 / 3.5 GHz5.3 / 4.7 GHz24 MB / 26 MB ?DDR5-7200125W / 159W$199 US
Core Ultra 5 245K14/14 (6+8)4.2 / 3.6 GHz5.2 / 4.6 GHz24 MB / 26 MBDDR5-6400125W / 159W$309 US
Core Ultra 5 245KF14/14 (6+8)4.2 / 3.6 GHz5.2 / 4.6 GHz24 MB / 26 MBDDR5-6400125W / 159W$294 US

News Source: X86 is dead&back

About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.