Intel Scrapped the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus Because Its Own $299 270K Plus Could Match It & New Benchmarks Confirm

The flagship CPU that Intel never released, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, has now been benchmarked & gives us an idea why it never entered retail segments.

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus Would Had Performed Similar To The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, Leaving No Choice But To Scrap It

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was going to be the flagship chip within the Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" family. This chip was expected to retain the same configuration as the Core Ultra 9 285K, & would've offered 24 cores and 24 threads. The clock speeds were going to be set at 3.7 GHz Base, 5.8 GHz boost, 36 MB of L3 cache, and 40 MB of L2 cache.

Bilibili outlet, 51972, recently got access to the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus from one of their fans who managed to get two prototype variants of the chip from his sources close to Intel. To verify that the chip was real, it was first booted up in the BIOS, where it showed the exact "290K Plus" naming, and then the CPU was checked in the new Intel BOT (Binary Optimization Tool) app. Since only newer Intel 200S Plus CPUs can enable BOT support, the 290K Plus also checked the list, showing that it was indeed the real deal.

With that, the user proceeded to test and benchmark the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus across various apps and games. First up, the clock speeds of the chip were definitely faster than the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus at a peak 5.5 GHz P-Core boost and a peak 4.8 GHz E-Core boost when running multi-threading tests such as Cinebench.

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In applications, the CPU was a marginal 2-3% faster than the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. Versus AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, it was a tad bit slower in some benchmarks, and faster in some, but the differences weren't that big. Again, in Rendering, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was around 4% faster on average, which again is not a huge deal.

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In gaming, Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus offered a maximum of 8% gain over the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, but the average uplift was close to 2-3%. At the same time, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 was much ahead at 1080p. A similar amount of performance can be seen in the 1440p gaming benchmarks.

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51972 goes on to claim that the minor differences in performance between the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus could have been the reason why Intel didn't launch the flagship. He stated that with a little bit of overclocking, the 270K Plus can easily match or even exceed the performance of the 290K Plus.

1080P Gaming Performance

Game	U9‑290K PLUS	U7‑270K PLUS
CS2	Avg FPS: 368 / 1% Low: 214	Avg FPS: 364 / 1% Low: 212
PUBG	Avg FPS: 193 / 1% Low: 99	Avg FPS: 189 / 1% Low: 96
Delta Force	Avg FPS: 234 / 1% Low: 93	Avg FPS: 216 / 1% Low: 90
Black Myth: Wukong	Avg FPS: 98 / 1% Low: 87	Avg FPS: 99 / 1% Low: 88
Resident Evil 9	Avg FPS: 138 / 1% Low: 103	Avg FPS: 139 / 1% Low: 100
Cyberpunk 2077	Avg FPS: 206 / 1% Low: 123	Avg FPS: 201 / 1% Low: 123

1440P Gaming Performance

Game	U9‑290K PLUS	U7‑270K PLUS
CS2	Avg FPS: 352 / 1% Low: 211	Avg FPS: 344 / 1% Low: 209
PUBG	Avg FPS: 189 / 1% Low: 103	Avg FPS: 188 / 1% Low: 94
Delta Force	Avg FPS: 218 / 1% Low: 89	Avg FPS: 204 / 1% Low: 78
Black Myth: Wukong	Avg FPS: 86 / 1% Low: 76	Avg FPS: 87 / 1% Low: 78
Resident Evil 9	Avg FPS: 95 / 1% Low: 73	Avg FPS: 95 / 1% Low: 73
Cyberpunk 2077	Avg FPS: 184 / 1% Low: 127	Avg FPS: 183 / 1% Low: 129

The biggest thing going on for the 270K Plus is its pricing, with an MSRP of $299, and it can currently be purchased for around $280, which is amazing. Meanwhile, a 290K Plus would've been priced around $399-$499, and would've made it far less valuable than the already impressive 270K Plus.

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

CPU	Cores/Threads	Base Clock (P/E Core)	Max Boost (P/E Core)	Cache (L3 / L2)	Memory Support	TDP (PL1 / PL2)	Price (SEP)
Core Ultra 9 290K Plus	24/24 (8+16)	3.7 / 3.2 GHz	5.8 / 4.8 GHz	36 MB / 40 MB	DDR5-7200	125W / 250W	Cancelled
Core Ultra 9 285K	24/24 (8+16)	3.7 / 3.2 GHz	5.7 / 4.6 GHz	36 MB / 40 MB	DDR5-6400	125W / 250W	$589 US
Core Ultra 7 270K Plus	24/24 (8+16)	3.7 / 3.2 GHz	5.5 / 4.7 GHz	36 MB / 40 MB	DDR5-7200	125W / 250W	$299 US
Core Ultra 7 265K	20/20 (8+12)	3.9 / 3.3 GHz	5.5 / 4.6 GHz	30 MB / 36 MB	DDR5-6400	125W / 250W	$394 US
Core Ultra 7 265KF	20/20 (8+12)	3.9 / 3.3 GHz	5.5 / 4.6 GHz	30 MB / 36 MB	DDR5-6400	125W / 250W	$379 US
Core Ultra 5 250K Plus	18/18 (6+12)	4.2 / 3.5 GHz	5.3 / 4.7 GHz	24 MB / 26 MB ?	DDR5-7200	125W / 159W	$199 US
Core Ultra 5 245K	14/14 (6+8)	4.2 / 3.6 GHz	5.2 / 4.6 GHz	24 MB / 26 MB	DDR5-6400	125W / 159W	$309 US
Core Ultra 5 245KF	14/14 (6+8)	4.2 / 3.6 GHz	5.2 / 4.6 GHz	24 MB / 26 MB	DDR5-6400	125W / 159W	$294 US

News Source: HXL (@9550pro)

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