GoKawiilIntel’s Arrow Lake platform was a huge disappointment at launch. It barely managed to compete with its predecessor, Raptor Lake Refresh, in gaming performance, all while AMD’s X3D CPUs continued to dominate the rankings among the best CPUs for gaming . Intel responded with heavy price cuts, but the situation was too far gone by then.
Now, we have a new challenger. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has launched at a remarkable $300 price point, $100 cheaper than what the Core Ultra 7 265K launched at, all while showing big increases in gaming and productivity performance. Intel is trying (maybe desperately) to regain the ground it lost with the original Arrow Lake and succeeding.
Its competitor for today’s faceoff is the Ryzen 7 9700X. Although on paper it has a lot fewer cores than the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, it is in the same price bracket as the Intel chip. This is a purchase decision potential buyers may face when they have $300-$350 to spend on a new CPU.
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Let’s run these two CPUs through our rigorous six-round gauntlet to determine which CPU is truly the best, and if Intel has made a successful attempt at redemption.
Features and Specifications: Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Ryzen 7 9700X
Swipe to scroll horizontally Intel 'Arrow Lake' Core Ultra 200S Series — Pricing and Specifications CPU Street (MSRP) Arch Cores / Threads (P+E) P-Core Base / Boost Clock (GHz) E-Core Base / Boost Clock (GHz) Cache (L2/L3) TDP / PBP or MTP Memory Core Ultra 7 270K Plus $330 ($300) Arrow Lake Refresh 24 / 24 (8+16) 3.7 / 5.4 3.2 / 4.7 76MB (40+36) 125W / 250W DDR5-7200 Ryzen 7 9700X $305 ($359) Zen 5 8 / 16 3.8 / 5.5 N/A 40MB (8+32) 65W / 88W (105W / 142W) DDR5-5600
Under the hood, Arrow Lake Refresh is exactly what it sounds like. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is based on the same microarchitecture as the 265K, built using TSMC’s 3nm process. Intel has provided 24 total cores in the 270K Plus, split into 8 Lion Core P-cores and 16 Skymont E-cores. There is only one thread per core across all Arrow Lake CPUs, bringing the total thread count to 24.
Intel claims that the 270K Plus is not just a better binned Arrow Lake CPU, but rather a new wafer and product code. Nevertheless, the main difference between the 270K Plus and the 265K is the clock speed. The Core Ultra 7 270K can climb up to 5.4 GHz on the P-cores, while the E-cores can boost up to 4.7 GHz. Being a K-series SKU, the multiplier is unlocked, giving you full access to overclocking.
Core clocks aren’t too different, but uncore clocks have shifted a lot. Intel increased the die-to-die frequency by 900 MHz compared to stock Arrow Lake chips, as well as bumped the fabric frequency by 400 MHz.
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