Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Core Ultra 5 245K “Arrow Lake” CPUs Review: Prioritizing Efficiency Over Performance

It's been almost two years since the release of the Intel Raptor Lake (13th Gen) CPUs and around a year since the launch of the 14th Gen Refresh. These 13th-gen lineups were strongly positioned at launch with strong single—and multi-core performance but came at the cost of higher power and temperatures. The company ended up in some major with its higher-end parts, and while that story is done, today, Intel will regain the trust of its customers and partners with the launch of the latest Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" lineup.

For today's review, we were sent a Core Ultra 9 285K and a Core Ultra 5 245K CPU by Intel and we have several Z890 motherboards at our disposal. The Arrow Lake review series will comprise of a lot of Z890 and DDR5 memory tests over the next couple of weeks but today, we will be looking at the pure performance that these chips have on offer.

The next chapter of Intel's Desktop CPU journey has been highly anticipated by many, especially since the 14th Gen CPUs were merely a refresh and didn't offer a much notable upgrade over the older 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs. Furthermore, Intel was hit with major backlash from audiences within the PC consumer market for the instability issues that affected the majority of top-end Core i9 13th and 14th Gen chips.

The company worked to lengths to mitigate and resolve the issues with the most recent "0x12B" microcode finally offering a concrete solution to the issues. But it's hard to come back from such a major issue and the accompanying controversy so let's see if Arrow Lake or Core Ultra 200S has what it takes for Intel to bounce back in the mainstream desktop segment with a solid offering.

Intel Arrow Lake CPU Architecture: Lion Cove, Skymont, Xe-LPG & NPU3 In Tiled Hierarchy

Starting first, Intel is streamlining the naming scheme to match its modern CPU lineups. Gone is the "Core I" series which has now been replaced with "Core Ultra". Both Arrow Lake & Lunar Lake CPUs are the second generation architecture featuring the tiled design and as such, the Desktop CPUs will be referred to as Core Ultra 200S. This naming scheme will be used by both the Arrow Lake "K" and Non-K SKUs.

Now let's dive into the Arrow Lake architecture a bit. The fundamental approach to building Arrow Lake is very similar to what we have seen in the past with the Alder Lake and Raptor Lake series. It uses two sets of core architectures, a P-Core and an E-Core.

 

The architectures themselves are similar to the ones used by Lunar Lake with Lion Cove serving as the P-Cores and Skymont serving as the E-cores. We have both cores detailed here. The decision to exclude hyper-threading on Arrow Lake has to be associated with the performance and efficiency goals as Intel states below:

We knew that we could save the wattage for hyper-threading by not including it on the product and you see we are still coming out net ahead by roughly 15-20% in nT without it. We were able to bump up efficiency and still hit our goals in overall compute performance.

The other thing I would say is that these are the same designs that we leveraged from Lunar Lake. We took those cores designs and we were able to immediately integrate them because of Foveros. So that's the one two punch that influenced our decision, speed to market and maximizing performance per watt.

Robert Hallock (Intel VP & General Manager Client AI and Technical Marketing)

In terms of IPC gains, Intel states that Lion Cove P-Cores offer a 9% uplift over the Raptor Cove cores while the Skymont E-Cores offer a 32% uplift over the Gracemont E-Cores featured on the 14th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs. For caches, each Lion Cove P-Cres features 3 MB of L2 cache while a cluster of the Skymont E-Cores which is four E-Cores comes packed with 4 MB of L2 cache. The P-Core sees a 1 MB L2 cache increase while the L3 cache is a 36 MB (Up To) chunk shared across both CPU cores.

Other architectural improvements include the Xe-LPG (Alchemist) iGPU which adds DP4a support and offers increased graphics performance with higher AI compute capabilities and also, first for Intel's desktop lineup, a dedicated NPU which is the same as the NPU3 featured on the Meteor Lake CPUs "Core Ultra Series 1". This NPU offers dedicated AI computing capabilities where the need arises.

All of the building blocks of Arrow Lake CPUs are put together in a tiled fashion with a total of six tiles which include:

• Compute Tile (TSMC N3B)
• Graphics Tile (TSMC N5P)
• SOC Tile (TSMC N6)
• I/O Tile (TSMC N6)
• Filer Tile (N/A)
• Base Tile (Intel 1227.1)

All of these Tiles are packaged on the main interposer using Intel's Forveros 3D packaging tech & as seen in the process description for each tile above, the compute tile is made using an external (N3B TSMC) node which is the first for an Intel Desktop CPU. For the filler tile:

Anytime you see a tile on the CPU that fills a spot, what we are really saying is you need a uniform, cavity-free surface for the heatspreader to sit on top of. If you do not mechanically support that heatspreader from below, it can bend, it can be crushed, it can be damaged, so you always want to fill all available die space and leave no cavity so filler tile, that's what it's for.

Robert Hallock (Intel VP & General Manager Client AI and Technical Marketing)

Arrow Lake also features an updated Thread Director. For the P-Cores, the new telemetry structure has been designed so that threads can be directed accurately and according to the workload, and for the E-Cores, the new HW-based prediction model can be leveraged for better classification to see if the workload can be accommodated on just the E-Cores or needs to be moved to the P-cores for higher performance. Lastly, the prediction model has been improved to offer more informed & controlled scheduling across the cores.

Just like Lunar Lake, the scheduler starts by scheduling the workload on the E-Cores and moving to the P-Cores as soon as more performance is needed. On being asked if this approach is viable for gaming PCs, Intel had the following to say:

Yeah it's still the same scheduling behavior but intense workloads communicates hint to the CPU to shift the workload over to the P core. We fully expect that the vast majority of hours that the person hours, the man hours, of all the collective  CPUs that will be sold, most of those would probably be in a desktop case. The gamers game a few hours a day so we have to think about the total power consumption footprint of the product over its life cycle.

Starting with E-cores first is the way to go for power because people aren't playing game all the time. When they do, the game will immediately snap to P cores like they do on Lunar because that's what the games tell the Thread Director to do.

Robert Hallock (Intel VP & General Manager Client AI and Technical Marketing)

Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" CPU Lineup Specs & Prices: 285K, 265K, 245K

The Intel Arrow Lake "Core Ultra 200S" Desktop CPU lineup will include a total of five SKUs which will feature three "K" and two "KF" variants.

Following are the specifications for each variant.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K 24 Core / 24 Thread CPU

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K will be the flagship CPU within the Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake" Desktop CPU lineup. This chip features 8 P-cores based on the Lion Cove core architecture and 16 E-cores based on the Skymont core architecture.

 

The chip will feature 24 threads and offer 36 MB of L3 and 40 MB of L2 cache for a total of 76 MB cache pool. The CPU will operate at a base clock of 3.7 GHz on the P-Core and 3.2 GHz on the E-Core while the maximum boost clocks are rated at 5.7 GHz for the P-Cores and 4.6 GHz for the E-Cores. The CPU will be set at a PL1 TDP of 125W and have an MTP of 250W.

• Core Ultra 9 285K: 24 Core / 24 Thread / 3.7-5.7 GHz / 36 MB L3 / 40 MB L2 / 125W-250W
• Core i9-14900K: 24 Core / 32 Thread / 3.2-6.0 GHz / 36 MB L3 / 32 MB L2 / 125W-253W

The Core Ultra 9 285K will be priced at $589 US which is the same pricing as the Core i9-14900K so the blue team isn't charging more for its flagship part. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X costs $649 which is $60 US higher than the 285K

Intel Core Ultra 7 265K 20 Core / 20 Thread CPU

Next is the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K which will be another high-end chip within the family with an 8 P-Core and 12 E-Core configurations totaling up to 20 cores and 20 threads. This chip will come with 30 MB of L3 and 36 MB of L2 cache for a total pool of 66 MB. Base clocks will be set at 3.9 GHz for the P-Cores and 3.3 GHz for the E-Cores while the boost clocks will be set at up to 5.5 GHz for the P-Cores and 4.6 GHz for the E-Cores. Once again, this chip will stick with a 125W PL1 and a 250W PL2 TDP.

• Core Ultra 7 265K: 20 Core / 20 Thread / 3.9-5.5 GHz / 30 MB L3 / 36 MB L2 / 125W-250W
• Core i7-14700K: 20 Core / 28 Thread / 3.4-5.6 GHz / 33 MB L3 / 28 MB L2 / 125W-253W

The Core Ultra 7 265K will come in two flavors including a KF part. The K variant will be priced at $394 US while the KF variant will be priced at $379 US. These prices are slightly lower than the i7-14700K and 14700KF prices which retail for $409 US and $384 US, respectively. The Ryzen 9 9900X retails for $499 US which is $105 US higher than the K and $120 US higher than the KF model.

Intel Core Ultra 5 245K 14 Core / 14 Thread CPU

Lastly, we have the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K which has seen some tuning. The CPU retains its 6 P-Core and 8 E-Core design for 14 cores and 14 threads with 24 MB of L3 cache and 26 MB of L2 cache for a total of 50 MB cache pool. The base clocks are set at 4.2 GHz for the P-Cores and 3.6 GHz for the E-Cores while the boost clocks are set at 5.2 GHz for the P-Cores and 4.6 GHz for the E-Cores.

• Core Ultra 5 245K: 14 Core / 14 Thread / 4.2-5.2 GHz / 24 MB L3 / 26 MB L2 / 125W-159W
• Core i5-14600K: 14 Core / 20 Thread / 3.5-5.3 GHz / 24 MB L3 / 20 MB L2 / 125W-181W

The 245K will also come in a KF flavor with the K SKU priced at $309 US and the KF variant priced at $294 US. The K variant is $10 US lower than the pricing of the 14600K ($319) while the KF variant is priced the same. The Ryzen 7 9700X costs $359 US which makes it $40 US more expensive than the K and $55 US more expensive than the KF variant.

Technically, the Ryzen 5 segment would be the direct segment for comparison against the Core Ultra 5 but as seen in previous launches, Core i5s have positioned themselves at a worthy position against the Ryzen 7 parts due to the latter lacking in multi-threading capabilities. The same is also true for the Core Ultra 7 SKUs (versus Ryzen 9).

Besides the main specs, all five SKUs would retain 24 PCIe lanes through the CPU, 13 TOPs of NPU performance, dual-channel DDR5-6400 (up to 192 GB) memory support, and feature four Xe iGPU cores with clock speeds up to 2000 MHz. As for the missing 285KF SKU, Intel stated that while it is not included in the launch lineup, we could see it in the future as more SKUs are finalized.

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

Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" CPU Performance: How Fast Are Those New Cores?

Starting with the performance summary based on what Intel has revealed, first we have a look at the single-core performance which was tested across Geekbench 6.3, SPECrate 2017 (int_base), Cinebench 2024, and 3DMark CPU Profile.

Intel claims that its latest Desktop CPUs win with the fastest single-core performance within each benchmark, offering a 4% faster ST uplift versus the competition and an 8% uplift versus the prior generation. Here, the Core Ultra 9 285K was compared against the Core i9-14900K and the Ryzen 9 9950X. Against AMD, Intel's lead scales from 2% to up to 8% while against its own Raptor Lake parts, the lead scales from 5% to up to 11%.

Moving over to the multi-threaded tests, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K offers a 15% uplift versus the prior generation (14900K) and a 13% uplift versus the competition (9950X). The same benchmarks are used.

While having higher performance is great, it looks like Intel had a different goal set in mind when developing the desktop Arrow Lake CPUs as evidenced by their slides. There are just too many power and efficiency figures which highlights how the company is gunning for the lead where competition has excelled over the past couple of years.

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K offers the same performance at half the power as the last-gen Core i9-14900K CPU which is a major leap. So for a workload in which the 14900K took 250 watts, the 285K will offer the same performance at 125 watts. The 285K is also more efficient in multi-threaded workloads than the 9950X based on AMD's latest Zen 5 core architecture.

Arrow Lake is said to scale well at both peak performance and peak efficiency mode. In peak performance mode, the CPU offers up to a 19% uplift in multi-threaded performance versus the 14th Gen lineup while in peak efficiency mode, you are getting 58% lower package power in light-threaded scenarios while achieving the same performance at 1/2 the power as mentioned above.

Gaming Performance on Arrow Lake "Core Ultra 200S" Is Super Efficient and Super Cool

One of the major drawbacks of Intel's gaming performance for desktop CPUs is that while they have been virtually on top of things and only stumbled since the launch of the Ryzen X3D parts, the CPUs do run hot and consume an awful lot of power. For gamers who find this annoying, Arrow Lake brings some major updates. For one, they run very cool and secondly, they consume way lower power than what you have been used to.

Starting with the comparisons of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K against the Core i9-14900K, the blue team claims an average increase of 0.35% with the major gains being seen in F1 23, Civilization VI while the chip loses in Far Cry 6 and Final Fantasy XIV. The benchmarks were conducted with APO enabled and both chips tested at their MTP of 250W/253W so that's Extreme mode for Raptor Lake & Performance mode for Arrow Lake.

While gamers may not see a major uplift in the vast majority of titles, what they will get is vastly lower power consumption. On average, the Core Ultra 9 285K consumes 73W lower power than 14900K running at baseline profile. The Arrow Lake chip even sees up to 165W, & 136W reduction in power figures across a range of games.

In a comparison demo where Assassins Creed Mirage was shown running on a 285K and a 14900K chip, the 285K delivered 261 FPS versus the 264 FPS of the 14900K but consumed 447W of system power versus the 527W system power of the 14900K. That's a reduction of 80W.

What this power reduction means is that the chip also runs vastly cooler. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is said to offer up to 17C lower temperatures while gaming and an average of 13C lower than the 14900K using a 360mm AIO cooler. So if you got to see temps however between 60-70C on an i9-14900K, a Core Ultra 9 285K will bring those down to 50-57C which is quite a big deal. Cooler and efficient gaming is back on the table for those who prefer going the Intel route.

Intel also offers a gaming performance comparison of its Core Ultra 9 285K against the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X through a selection of games. Here, the lead is also marginal at best with the 285K either winning or losing against the 9950X and one thing to note is that APO is enabled here too so it's not a fair way to compare both chips. The power characteristics and the temperatures are said to be better than the 9950X.

A comparison to an X3D part is also made and here we see the Ryzen 9 7950X3D against which the Core Ultra 9 285K secures faster multi-threaded performance in games but is about on par in games. This would mean that the upcoming "Zen 5" based Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs should end up offering better gaming performance considering just how potent the 7800X3D is within games.

One interesting slide that Intel has shared shows that the gaming performance for its Arrow Lake CPUs such as the Core Ultra 9 285K will be the same across different power limits. A 125W PL1 configuration should deliver the same gaming performance as the 175W PL1 and the 250W PL1 (Default) mode. So you can go the 125W PL1 mode on these chips if gaming is your only jam.

Lastly, Intel also offers a sneak peek of its Core Ultra 7 265K CPU against the Core i9-14900K in games. The 265K should be around 5% slower in gaming performance but consume up to 188W lower system power while offering 15C lower temps. Given its price point, the 265K can shake things up in the mainstream/high-end gaming segment.

Intel's First Desktop CPU With An NPU

Arrow Lake "Core Ultra 200S" series is the first desktop CPUs from Intel to feature an NPU. AMD was the first to release a desktop chip with an NPU in the form of their Ryzen 8000G series which offers up to 16 TOPs and Intel's NPU3 offers up to 13 TOPs.

The difference is that Intel is leveraging the entire compute capabilities of its Arrow Lake desktop chips to offer up to 36 platform TOPs that support VNNI, DP4a, and NPU acceleration. The chip still doesn't meet the 40+ TOPS requirement for Copilot+ but desktop PCs will be using a discrete GPU which should offer 100s of TOPs, enough to be compliant for those features.

It's not how fast the NPU is but rather how well it can be leveraged and for that, Intel has a large force of AI engineers working around the clock to deliver support for its AI hardware in a range of light AI workloads, offering a big boost in performance.

For creators who want to gain extra performance, the new AI NPU can offer 50% faster creator workload performance in tasks such as AI-assisted video editing, 8x faster timeline playback for pro video codecs, and 20% faster rendering performance for ray-traced applications versus the Ryzen 9 9950X.

With the chips and their performance out of the way, the next topic that we have to discuss is the platform. For its Arrow Lake lineup, Intel is introducing a brand new socket which ends the reign of the LGA 1700 series after a little over three years. The new socket from now onward will be LGA 1851 and this will be first featured on the new 800-series motherboards.

The 800-series chipsets will include several SKUs but the one we are getting today is the top-tier Z890. This platform offers a total of 48 PCIe lanes of which 20 are PCIe Gen 5.0 and these come from both the CPU and the PCH. The Z890 PCH features up to 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes, up to 4 eSPI, up to 10 USB 3.2 ports including 5 20G, 10 10G, and 10 5G options, up to 14 USB 2.0 links & up to 8 SATA III links.

The new platform is further enriched with the latest features which include:

Integrated I/O:

• Up To 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports
• Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+)
• Bluetooth 5.3 (LE)
• 1 GbE

Discrete I/O:

• Up To 4 Thunderbolt 5 ports
• Intel Killer Wi-Fi 7 (5 Gig)
• Bluetooth 5.4 (LE)
• 2.5 GbE

In terms of memory support, the new Z890 motherboards will offer up to DDR5-6400 (native) capabilities and expanded speeds over 8000 MT/s with XMP. The platform will support up to 48 GB DIMMs in the dual-channel mode for up to 192 GB capacities in UDIMM, CUDIMM, SODIMM, and CSODIMM flavors.

Lots of Goodies For Overclockers!

Finally, we have the new overclocking goodness which comes in the form of new functionalities for tuners with fine grain control.

These features include:

• Granular core clock - Top turbo frequency in 16.6 MHz steps for P-Cores and E-Cores
• Dual base clock - Run an independent BCLK for SOC and compute tiles
• Tile-to-Tile & fabric OC - Can apply a static/BIOS ratio and supports dynamic ratio changes for fabric
• DLVR bypass - Bypass the internal voltage management using an external supply for extreme OC
• Intel eXtreme tuning utility - New features including automated OC enhancements
• Memory overclocking - New memory controller supports new XMP and CUDIMM DDR5
• P & E-core overclocking - P-core per-core V/f control, and E-Core per cluster V/f control
• Low-temperature overvolting - Increasingly bypass voltage limits as the chip gets colder

The cooler operation of the chips also provides higher headroom for overclockers. As for the TJmax, Arrow Lake-S "Core Ultra 200S" will have a peak operating temperature of 105C.

For testing, I used the Core Ultra 9 285K & Core Ultra 5 245K CPUs which were sent to us by Intel. The motherboard used includes the Gigabte Z890 AORUS Master which targets the high-end LGA 1851 segment. Both CPUs were tested at default PL1=PL2 250W modes and the use of "Extreme" mode will be listed otherwise.

Wccftech Test Rig 2026:

Processors	Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Intel Core Ultra 5 245K Intel Core i9-14900K Intel Core i7-14700K Intel Core i5-14600K Intel Core i9-13900K Intel Core i7-13700K Intel Core i5-13600K Intel Core i9-12900K Intel Core i7-12700K Intel Core i5-12600K AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D AMD Ryzen 9 9950X AMD Ryzen 9 9900X AMD Ryzen 7 9700X AMD Ryzen 5 9600X AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D AMD Ryzen 9 7950X AMD Ryzen 9 7900X AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D AMD Ryzen 7 7700X AMD Ryzen 5 7600X AMD Ryzen 9 5950X AMD Ryzen 9 5900X AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D AMD Ryzen 7 5800X AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z890 AORUS Master (Intel Core Ultra 200S) Gigabyte Z790 AORUS Master X (Intel 14th Gen) MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk (Ryzen 7000 X3D) MSI MEG Z790 ACE (Intel 13th Gen) ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E HERO (Ryzen 9000 & 7000) Z690 AORUS Master (Intel 12th Gen) ASRock X570S PG Riptide (Ryzen 5000 / X3D) MSI MEG X570S ACE (5600X3D)
Power Supply	MSI MEG Ai1600T PSU
Storage	Samsung 9100 Pro 1 TB Gen5 SSD
Memory	G.Skill Trident Z5 NEO 32 GB (2x 16 GB) CL26 G.Skill Trident Z5 48 GB (2x 24 GB) CL40 8000 MT/s (Core Ultra 200S) G.SKILL Trident Z5 32 GB (2 x 16GB) CL36 7200 MT/s (Intel 12th/13th/14th Gen) G.SKILL Trident Z5 NEO 32 GB (2 x 16GB) CL36 6400 MT/s (AMD DDR5 Platforms) G.SKILL Trident Z Royal Series 16 GB (2 x 8GB) CL17 4000 MT/s (DDR4 Platforms)
Video Cards	MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X
Cooling Solutions	Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420mm AIO
OS	Windows 11 64-bit (25H2)

Our test rig includes the Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB SSD and we have recently transferred all of our games to a 4 TB Gen4 SSD from KLEVV (CRAS 930). In addition to these, we are running an MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X graphics card and an ASUS ROG Thor 1200W power supply. For this specific review, we used G.Skill's latest Trident Z5 DDR5-8000 memory kit running at CL40 timings. The test setup also uses the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420mm cooling solution.

AIDA64 Memory Scaling on Core Ultra 9 285K

3DMark CPU Profile Benchmark

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Blender

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Cinebench 2024

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Cinebench R23

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CPU-Z

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Geekbench 6

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HandBrake

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PCMark 10

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POV-Ray

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SuperPI

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WinRAR

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Cyberpunk 2077

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DOOM Eternal

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Forza Horizon 5

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Metro Exodus

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Shadow of The Tomb Raider

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Spider-Man Remastered (Ray Tracing)

Counter-Strike 2

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The Intel Core Ultra 200S "Arrow Lake" Desktop CPUs come with a slightly modified IHS which is equipped over the tiled CPU die. This IHS features a soldered design with gold plating underneath to ensure good heat dissipation and thermal conductivity. The socket also features a revised ILM mechanism called RL-ILM (Reduced-Load) to provide optimal pressure for the socket and the CPU.

Intel's Arrow Lake "K" SKUs come with a default TDP of 125W and a PL2 rating of 250W for the Ultra 9 285K and 159W for the 245K. The chips can be set to performance or extreme mode using the BIOS software from each respective motherboard vendor.

Intel's latest generation of Desktop CPUs has finally arrived and they have some big expectations to fulfill. First of all, the blue team has run in the same cycle that showed a glimpse of improvement in the 12th Gen Alder Lake lineup but the follow-up Raptor Lake CPUs ended up with higher power, & thermal figures. We also saw instability issues arise with current-generation chips and while Intel has worked to resolve those, a lot is riding on the Arrow Lake CPUs. So with that said, let's see if the Core Ultra 200S was worth the wait.

Arrow Lake Brings A Decent Application Performance Uplift

Looking at the performance, you'd notice that in core CPU benchmarks and applications, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 5 245K chips fare well. They offer a good uplift over the respective predecessors which are the 14900K/13900K and the 14600K/13600K. These range from single-digit and up to 15-20%, depending on the application. We noticed a further 5-8% boost when the CPUs were tuned to their "Extreme" profiles. It's not a big jump but given that these chips are packing way fewer threads than the current generation and the competition and offering uplifts, it should be a plus.

Gaming Performance Less Than Desirable

In gaming benchmarks, the Intel Core Ultra 200S is a bit lackluster. The Core Ultra 9 285K only manages to match the 14900K (Baseline) but mostly tends to be closer to the Core i9-13900K at similar Baseline profiles. Pushing things to the "Extreme" profiles does net better performance but you aren't getting anywhere close to AMD's X3D 3D V-Cache CPUs which are still topping the charts along with the 14900KS which is a super hot and super power-hungry chip but it's still Intel's fastest chip at gaming.

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K also offers performance similar to the Ryzen 7 9700X or the Core i5-14600K and sometimes manages to come close to the Core i7-14700K. Faster memory such as DDR5 CUDIMMs can boost the performance by a good margin but if you're using a DDR5-8000 kit, then don't expect performance to be miles ahead of Raptor Lake. We even saw regression in the 0.1 and 1% low FPS. This reeks of something wonky going on with the existing microcode and is reminiscent of AMD's Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" launch which also saw various updates to improve game performance. Our current test bench includes the new figures carried out on Windows 11 24H2 with proper updates so yeah, it's a new waiting game with Arrow Lake to see how Intel fine-tunes its latest chips in the coming weeks.

Multiple motherboard vendors have also informed us that Intel is already preparing a microcode patch which is expected to go live soon so we reviewers will need to take a 2nd go at Core Ultra 200S when that hits shelves.

Power & Thermals Are Down Big Time

One big improvement or the only improvement that is noticeable across the board with Arrow Lake CPUs is the power consumption and the thermal figures. We are seeing some massive drops in overall power consumption, both in applications and gaming scenarios. That's great for users who are fed up with thermal budgets on CPUs going bonkers. The lower power also leads to better CPU thermals and we are seeing average temperatures of mid-70s for the Ultra 9 285K and high 50s for the Ultra 5 245K. Existing Core i9-13900K and 14900K CPUs consume way higher power and run at over 90C almost all the time.

Most of this improvement is thanks to TSMC's N3B process node which has led to significant power and thermal improvements. The Arrow Lake CPUs were originally meant to launch on an Intel 20A process node but those plans have been scrapped so we will never know the thermal or power characteristics of an Arrow Lake chip based on that node for Desktop PCs.

Price Cuts vs MSRP

Pricing plays a crucial role in today's launch. The Core Ultra 9 285K starts at $589 while the Core Ultra 5 245K starts at $309. Intel's 13th & 14th Gen CPUs are already available at discounted prices while AMD also slashed its Ryzen 9000 MSRP by a good $50-$30 US two days ago. Currently, the Ryzen 9 9950X is about the same price as the Core Ultra 9 285K while the Ryzen 7 9700X costs a bit more than the Core Ultra 5 245K but not by a lot. The Core i9-14900K also retails at a much lower price of $468 US while the Core i5-14600K retails for around $250 US.

Compared to the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, the Core Ultra 9 285K should offer performance on par when looking at various application benchmarks but the 9950X should lead by a good margin in terms of gaming performance. The 285K also offers lower temperatures but power figures are around the same ballpark. For the 245K, it beats the Ryzen 7 9700X in multi-thread performance with similar gaming potential and it runs cool and consumes way lower power.

So Should I Buy Arrow Lake?

Arrow Lake has both good and bad things. Performance is definitely the worst part as we are only seeing marginal gains and we might have to wait for future microcodes, patches, and optimizations to address these shortcomings. In that regard, it's better to stick with Ryzen 7000/9000 or Intel 12 and 13th Gen CPUs.

But if you are tired of the higher power consumption and thermal issues affecting your chips or worry about potential degradation, then Arrow Lake is a good platform. Surely you will miss out on the performance aspects and the upcoming Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs do look far more exciting of a launch for gamers and enthusiasts but the platform as a whole has a lot to offer, especially if you aim to knock your pants off with some extreme memory overclocking. I would advise waiting for the Ryzen 9000X3D to make an informed and intelligent decision.

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