Intel has lastly revealed its long-awaited Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs. Dubbed Core Ultra 200S Plus, Intel is introducing two new chips in its lineup, each of which include a worth lower in comparison with their non-Plus predecessors. The headline declare is 15% larger gaming efficiency at 1080p in comparison with inventory Arrow Lake chips — a quantity that Intel says it gathered from a geomean of 38 video games examined at 1080p with High settings, in a bid to earn a spot among the many greatest CPUs for gaming.
Arrow Lake Refresh brings three new SKUs complete: two CPUs and one variant. Both include an additional 4 E-cores in comparison with their inventory designs, together with as much as a 900MHz increase in die-to-die frequency, they usually’ll be accessible in each Okay (unlocked) variations. The Core Ultra 5 250K can also be accessible in a KF (unlocked with out built-in graphics) model. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus comes with 24 cores, cut up throughout eight P-cores and 16 E-cores, matching the Core Ultra 9 285K. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus comes with 18 cores throughout six P-cores and 12 E-cores, falling barely under the 20 cores accessible on the Core Ultra 7 265K.
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Cores / Threads | Maximum Boost Clock | Power (PL1 / PL2) |
| Core Ultra 7 270K Plus | 24 (8P + 16E) / 24 | 5.5 GHz | ~ |
| Core Ultra 7 265K | 20 (8P + 12E) / 20 | 5.5 GHz | 125W / 250W |
| Core Ultra 5 250K Plus | 18 (6P + 12E) | 5.3GHz | ~ |
| Core Ultra 5 245K | 14 (6P + 8E) / 14 | 5.2 GHz | 125W / 159W |
| Row 5 – Cell 0 | Row 5 – Cell 1 | Row 5 – Cell 2 | Row 5 – Cell 3 |
~ = Unknown
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In addition to larger core counts, Intel boosted the velocity of the reminiscence controller by as much as 900MHz. Memory (and core-to-core) latency was one of many weaker features of the Arrow Lake structure initially, and Intel claims this increase will assist drive “system latency down and gaming performance up.”
Arrow Lake is one among Intel’s most complicated architectures to this point, and the primary to make use of a chiplet design (or tile-based design, as Intel calls it), introduced along with Foveros packaging. The Compute Tile, constructed on TSMC N3B, lives other than the SoC tile, constructed on N6, which homes the show and media engines, PCIe PHYs, reminiscence PHYs, and the reminiscence controllers. Previous Intel architectures have used a monolithic design the place the reminiscence controllers are very near the cores. By boosting the clock of the reminiscence controller, Intel hopes to drive down one of many weaker features of Arrow Lake from an architectural standpoint.
But that’s just one a part of the gaming increase, based on Intel. The different aspect of it’s the Intel Binary Optimization Tool, or iBOT, which Intel says is “a first-of-its-kind binary translation layer optimization capability that can improve native performance in select games.” This function, based on Intel, can enhance instruction per clock (IPC) in sure video games, even when that sport has been optimized for a unique structure or sport console. Notably, Intel says it improves efficiency even for workloads optimized for different x86 architectures; this isn’t an ARM translation layer alongside the strains of Microsoft Prism or Apple Rosetta.
iBOT is one of the most interesting features of Arrow Lake Refresh, but we still don’t know much about it. Intel has kept its technical capabilities vague, so it’s something we’ll need to look into once we get our hands on the Core Ultra 7 270K and Core Ultra 5 250K. For now, Intel says iBOT is “a key aspect of Intel’s long-term performance roadmap for enthusiasts.” What we do know is that iBOT is an optional feature within Intel Application Optimization (APO) when you switch to advanced mode.
Outside of the chips themselves, Intel is bringing faster memory speeds and early support for 4R CUDIMMs on select 800-series motherboards. For standard DDR5 DIMMs, Intel is upping the officially supported speeds to 7,200MT/s, which is a speed that even standard Arrow Lake chips can maintain, though it isn’t officially supported. With the Boost BIOS profile, warrantied speeds go up to 8,000MT/s.
4R CUDIMM support (four-rank) allows much higher memory capacities on consumer-grade motherboards, offering up to 128GB of capacity per DIMM. MSI and ADATA were the first to demonstrate stability of 4R CUDIMMs in November of last year, and Intel says it’s opening up support for them on new 800-series motherboards launching throughout 2026.
On average, Intel claims the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is 15% faster than the Core Ultra 7 265K, with a peak as high as up to 39% in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, according to Intel’s testing. This title, along with Hitman 3, where the 270K showed a 22% uplift, use iBOT. Elsewhere, the gains are less pronounced but still present. The 270K posted up to a 12% boost in F1 25 and up to 9% in Star Wars Outlaws, neither of which use iBOT.
The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is 13% faster than the Core Ultra 5 245K on average, according to Intel. Once again, the largest gains come from games with iBOT; Borderlands 3 at 20% and Far Cry 6 at 24%. Outside of iBOT, the gains are still solid, with Battlefield 6 showing a 10% uplift and Star Wars Outlaws climbing by 8%. For all game testing, Intel used a 1080p resolution at High settings and took the median result of three runs. You can see the system configurations in the slides above.
In applications, Intel claims up to a 2x performance improvement compared to AMD’s Zen 5 competition, but it’s not exactly a fair battle. Intel’s newest CPUs come with massive core arrays compared to the homogenous architecture of Zen 5. It’s a battle that Intel is always going to win. However, there is something to be said about getting a CPU with 24 cores for $300, especially if you plan on running heavily-threaded workloads like Blender or Handbrake.
That might be the most important takeaway about Arrow Lake Refresh: the price. Intel has drastically cut the list price of these chips compared to their Arrow Lake counterparts. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus starts at $199, while the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus starts at $299, putting the CPUs in direct competition with AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, respectively. The Core Ultra 5 245K originally launched for over $300, while the Core Ultra 7 265K launched at $400.
The price cuts are a reflection of what we can see in the market right now — the Core Ultra 5 245K sells for about $200, while the 265K is available for anywhere from $280 to $310. These prices make Arrow Lake Refresh significantly more competitive for gamers at budget price points. Although AMD holds a clear lead in gaming performance with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, Arrow Lake Refresh comes in at a much lower price.
Extrapolating out the performance claims, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus bodes particularly well. Based on our own testing, the Ryzen 7 9700X is about 4% faster than the Core Ultra 7 265K at 1080p in games. If Intel’s 15% claim holds up, Arrow Lake Refresh takes the lead in this price bracket. More importantly, Intel’s Core i7-14700K is around 11% faster than the Core Ultra 7 265K. Once again, that 15% jump would put Intel on top in this price bracket, and finally give Intel a faster gaming CPU than its 14th-Gen offerings.
For now, that’s just speculation. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait long to see Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs in action. Intel says you’ll be able to find Core Ultra 200S Plus CPUs at retailers starting on March 26. Our test benches are already running at full tilt with Intel’s latest, so we’ll have more to share on performance in full reviews shortly.
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