I’ve been conflicted about the latest Intel Core Ultra 200S processors ever since I first reviewed them for TechRadar last year, and I have the exact same problems with the new Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus as I did with Intel’s first stab at a Core Ultra desktop chip.
On paper, these are genuinely fantastic processors that offer some of the best multi-core performance you’re going to find outside of an AMD Ryzen Threadripper, especially for the price. Even on the gaming front, they aren’t terrible processors and can offer better value for the performance than AMD in a few games. But the gaming performance isn’t quite good enough to recommend when better gaming processors exist elsewhere.
Purchasing Guide
The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K are available now starting at $319 and $219, respectively on Newegg. Keep in mind, though, that Intel will launch a CPU with a suggested price, and after launch, that price will go up and down depending on demand.
Specs and Features
The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus are steps up from the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, respectively. The 250K Plus and 270K Plus feature some enhanced Arrow Lake architecture over the base Series 200S chips, including 4 additional E-cores and slightly faster boost clock speeds.
In the case of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, this puts the chip on par with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K with 24 total cores (8 performance + 16 efficient) at a slightly slower boost speed (5.5GHz, compared to the 285K’s 5.7GHz boost), though at roughly half the price. For the 250K Plus, the additional cores brings its total count to 18 (6p+12e), compared to the 6p+8e core configuration of the 245K.
Both chips also have some expanded L3 cache, though nothing on the order of AMD Ryzen 3D V-Cache. They are also able to support up to 7200MT/s DDR5 RAM, an increase of about 800MT/s over the baseline Arrow Lake-S chips.
All of this sounds amazing considering the lower price of these two chips, with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus coming in at $299.99 and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus settling in at $219.99. For non-gamers, this is absolutely the case; but for anyone who only wants to play games, the value proposition falls off.
Performance
Both the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Ultra 7 270K Plus punch well above their weight when it comes to multi-core and creative performance, so for productivity or workstation use, I actually recommend considering them if you don’t plan on upgrading past this for a few years.
However, in games, these processors occasionally fall short of their respective Core Ultra 200S non-Plus counterparts. That makes these very difficult processors to recommend if gaming is even remotely important to you.
Synthetic single-core and multi-core performance on these refreshed Arrow Lake CPUs is outstanding, with the 270K Plus managing to fight the Core Ultra 9 285K to an effective tie in Cinebench R23 in multi-core performance and coming within 4% of the 285K’s single-core performance.
Against the best AMD processors, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus scores a roughly 83% better multi-core performance and a roughly 9% better single-core performance over the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D in Cinebench R23, and even manages to slightly edge out the multicore performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Against its direct AMD competition, the Ryzen 7 9700X, the 270K Plus gets 117% better multi-core performance, though it is only 2.5% faster in single-core, in Cinebench R23.
For the 250K Plus, I found a full 25% better multi-core performance and a roughly 6% better single core performance in Cinebench R23 over the Core Ultra 245K, and a 35-40% better multi-core performance over its two Ryzen 7 3D V-Cache competitors. Against the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, the 250K Plus pulls down a 107% better multi-core performance in Cinebench R23, and 112% faster multi-core performance in 3DMark’s CPU Profile.
On the creative side of things, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus are phenomenal for creative work on the cheap, especially the 250K Plus, which beats out even the Core Ultra 9 285K by just over 8% in my Photoshop results.
When it comes to gaming, though, the Core Ultra 200S Plus chips just can’t compete with AMD’s offerings, or even their non-Plus counterparts.
In Cyberpunk 2077’s benchmark (no RT, no DLSS, Ultra preset at 1080p), the Core Ultra 250K Plus falls about 2% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X in average fps, which is more or less within the margin of testing variance, so I’d call it a tie here. Unfortunately for the 250K Plus, it is noticeably slower than the 9600X in Total War: Warhammer 3’s battle benchmark (1080p ultra preset), with a roughly 16% lower average fps. Against the Intel Core Ultra 245K, the 250K Plus posts mixed results with a roughly 7% higher average fps in Cyberpunk 2077 but a 14% lower average fps in Total War: Warhammer 3; taken together, scoring about 6% slower in gaming performance overall against the chip it is refreshing.
The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, meanwhile, has its best result against the Ryzen 7 9700X in Cyberpunk 2077, scoring a roughly 7% better average fps. It’s downhill from there, though, as the 270K Plus underperforms the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in Cyberpunk 2077 average fps by about 25%, and even falls about 4% behind the Ryzen 5 9600X and about 2% behind the 250K Plus.
In Total War: Warhammer 3’s battle benchmark, the 270K Plus does manage to get about 12% better average fps than the 250K Plus, but gets roughly 5% lower average fps than the 9700X and about 8% lower versus the 9800X3D. Possibly worst of all for the 270K Plus, it gets 6.5% lower average fps than the Ryzen 5 9600X.
The one thing that the 250K Plus and 270K Plus do bring to the table is phenomenal value for their overall performance, but this just doesn’t translate to gaming.
Whereas the 270K Plus offers about 11% better overall performance for the price versus the Ryzen 7 9700X, it gets about 14.5% lower gaming performance-per-dollar, and is currently about 16% more expensive than its direct AMD competition. Against the more elite 9800X3D chip, the 270K Plus sells for about 19% cheaper and offers a fantastic 43% better performance-per-dollar overall, but it’s only about a 4.5% better gaming value than the more expensive 9800X3D. It looks even worse when compared to the Ryzen 5 9600X, a chip that costs about half the price of the 270K Plus, but gets about 6% better gaming performance on average.
The 250K Plus similarly fails to keep up with the Ryzen 5 9600X in terms of value, managing a 4% better overall performance-per-dollar than the 9600X, but the 9600X offers nearly 35% better gaming performance for the price than the 250K Plus. That said, the 250K Plus does offer the third best gaming performance-per-dollar of the current generation of processors, behind the 9600X and the second-place Core Ultra 5 245K, so it might be a good choice depending on your budget.
It’s also worth noting that AMD’s competing chips are much more power efficient than Intel’s latest, with the 9600X and 9700X topping out at 88W, compared to 163.5W for the 250K Plus and nearly 268W for the 270K Plus. Even the 9800X3D scores better than the 250K Plus, with a max power draw of 161.2W. As for thermals, the 270K Plus runs the hottest with a max temp of 90C, followed by the 9600X’s 88C max, the 9800X3D maxing out at 86C, the 9700X hitting a 75.5C max, and the 250K Plus running coolest at a maximum temp of 69C.
