Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus “Arrow Lake Refresh” CPU Benchmark Leaks Out: Up To 9% Faster Than 285K, 11% Faster Vs 9950X3D In Multi-Threading

Jan 13, 2026 at 05:45am EST
An Intel Core Ultra Plus processor is displayed next to the text '290K' against a blue-green geometric background.

Intel's flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus CPU has been benchmarked within Geekbench, revealing almost 10% improvement in multi-threading.

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus CPU Benchmark Leak Shows That It Should Be The Fastest Desktop Chip For Multi-Threading Tasks

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus will be the flagship chip within the Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" family. This chip is expected to retain the same configuration unless the blue team suddenly comes out with a new Arrow Lake-S die, which remains highly unlikely. So we can expect the CPU to offer the same 24 cores, 24 threads, but with higher clock speeds and possibly a higher TDP too.

Related Story AMD Reportedly Says No To FSR 4 For RDNA 3.5, Stripping Ryzen AI 300/400 APUs Of Latest Upscaling Technology

In Geekbench, the chip appeared with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of up to 5.80 GHz, a 100 MHz bump in peak boost clocks. This shouldn't bring a huge improvement in performance, but if offered at the same price, it should offer a nice step up. Other Core Ultra 200S Plus chips are getting a core configuration update, too.

The benchmark was conducted on a Gigabyte Z890 AORUS Tachyon ICE motherboard with 48 GB of DDR5-8000 memory. This is a very flagship configuration.

As for the performance, the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K PLUS CPU scored 3456 points in the single-thread test and 24,610 points in the multi-core tests. When compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K, this is a 7% uplift in single-core and 9% improvement in multi-core tasks. When compared to AMD's fastest chip, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the 290K PLUS offers a 2% improvement in single-core and a 11% improvement in multi-core tasks.

The following is how the performance stacks up:

Geekbench 6 (Higher is Better)
ST
MT
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
Core Ultra 9 290K Plus
3456
24610
Core Ultra 9 285K
3202
22580
Ryzen 9 9950X3D
3397
22156

Now we don't expect the gaming performance of the 290K Plus to be much different than the existing 285K, and AMD's 3D V-Cache chips are going to retain their phenomenal lead.

The Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" family should also include a Core Ultra 5 SKU, though we don't have details of that chip yet. The lineup looks a lot like a last effort to clear some additional 800-series motherboard inventory before the launch of the next-gen Nova Lake-S platform, which will feature a brand new socket, "LGA 1954". Expect more leaks and details of the lineup in the coming months as we approach the launch.

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: Benchleaks

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.

Products mentioned