GoKawiilThe Core Ultra 5 250K Plus punches above its weight class and establishes a new baseline for what an entry-level processor should look like.
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Intel wants to change the narrative around its Arrow Lake CPUs. That’s the goal with Core Ultra 200S Plus, with Team Blue trying to earn back some slots among the best gaming CPUs that it’s lost, both to AMD and its own previous-gen offerings over the past 18 months. The $200 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is targeting budget-conscious builders, taking the fight to AMD’s entry-level 6-core offerings and bringing down the Core Ultra 5 brand a tier in pricing.
We’ve already looked at the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which is Intel’s $300 offering in this small range of Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs. And the story here is similar to what we saw with the Core Ultra 7. Intel is delivering some of the best productivity performance we’ve seen in several generations, considering the price, and a decent, albeit still lacking, improvement in gaming performance.
The weakness on the gaming front is a bit easier to forgive here, however, given how far away the price is from dominant X3D chips like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 7 9850X3D . The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is particularly compelling if you don’t have a Micro Center nearby, which continues to offer the Ryzen 5 7600X3D at $200; at present, there isn’t another CPU even remotely close as far as gaming value goes.
Looking at the overall performance picture, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is great, with the productivity performance doing some heavy lifting. My main reservation about an all-out recommendation is the platform. The LGA 1851 socket is on its way out, and Intel has teed up next-gen Nova Lake CPUs for the end of this year. Even with clear advantages over AMD’s Zen 5 competition, the AM5 socket will see support through at least the end of 2027.
We have a full range of benchmarks to show the capabilities of the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus in action, including an updated suite of 17 games, as well as application tests ranging from creative apps to chess engines. We’ll have some more on Intel’s interesting Binary Optimization Tool in the coming days, as well.
Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus ‘Arrow Lake Refresh’ pricing and specifications
Swipe to scroll horizontally CPU Street (MSRP) Cores / Threads (P+E) P-Core Base / Boost (GHz) E-Core Base / Boost (GHz) Cache (L2 + L3) TDP / MTP Memory Core Ultra 9 285K $530 ($589) 24 / 24 (8+16) 3.7 / 5.5 3.2 / 4.6 76 MB 125W / 250W 6400MT/s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus $300 24 / 24 (8+16) 3.7 / 5.4 3.2 / 4.7 76 MB 125W / 250W 7200MT/s Core Ultra 7 265K $270 ($394) 20 / 20 (8+12) 3.9 / 5.4 3.3 / 4.6 66 MB 125W / 250W 6400MT/s Core Ultra 5 250K Plus $200 18 / 18 (6+12) 4.2 / 5.3 3.3 / 4.6 60 MB 125W / 159W 7200MT/s Core Ultra 5 245K $200 ($309) 14 / 14 (6+8) 4.2 / 5.2 3.6 / 4.6 50 MB 125W / 159W 6400MT/s Core Ultra 5 225 $180 ($246) 10 / 10 (6+4) 3.3 / 4.9 2.7 / 4.4 42 MB 65W / 121W 6400MT/s
Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs are indeed a refresh, but Intel tells me that it’s using an entirely new revision of the wafer, not just binning existing silicon. For the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, it sits in a unique spot among the new Arrow Lake lineup, with 18 total cores split across six Lion Cove P-cores and 12 Skymont E-cores. It’s launching at $200, which is $109 less than the launch price of the Core Ultra 5 245K and the same price that you can find that chip at now.
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