Intel Arrow Lake review analysis shows Core Ultra 200S CPUs are efficiency champions and gaming duds

To say the least, the launch of Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S processors sparked controversy. On the one hand, Arrow Lake processors do not bring appreciable performance gains and even take a hit to gaming capabilities. On the other hand, Intel has kept its promises when it comes to efficiency.

That said, in the chaos of a plethora of release reviews, it can be difficult to judge the actual capabilities or lack thereof of the products reviewed, as CPUs are tested differently from point of sale to point of sale. ‘other. Fortunately, 3DCenter has compiled 20 Arrow Lake launch tests to give customers a comprehensive look at Intel’s new desktop processors.

Right away, we can see that Arrow Lake processors provide a notable, but ultimately unimpressive, gain in application performance. According to data compiled by 3DCenter, the Core Ultra 9 285K is on average 7% faster than the Core i9-14900K and 3% slower than the Ryzen 9 9950X.

Moving down the scale, the Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 7 265K are 3.9% and 4.6% ahead of the Core i5-14600K and Core i7-14700K, respectively. Additionally, the Core Ultra 5 245K is 3.5% faster than the Ryzen 7 9700X, while the Core Ultra 7 265K reaches the performance of the Ryzen 9 9900X.

Overall, Intel’s Arrow Lake chips provide a slight improvement over the 14th generation chips, despite the lack of hyperthreading.

Unfortunately, Arrow Lake processors suffer when it comes to gaming performance and are generally slower than their predecessors and competing Zen 5 chips.

Looking at the numbers, the Core Ultra 9 285K would be behind the Core i9-14900K by 6% and 4.2% behind the Ryzen 9 9950X. The chip is also no match for the current gaming champion, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, as AMD’s CPU is 16% faster. This is a disappointing result from Intel, especially since the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is now official and brings a 20% improvement in gaming performance over the Core Ultra 9 285K.

The Core Ultra 7 265K and Core Ultra 5 245K do not do better, the first suffering a regression of 7% compared to the Core i7-14700K while the second is lagging behind by 4% compared to the Core i5-14600K. The Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9900X are also faster, while their Intel rivals lose 10% and 3.3% respectively.

In summary, Intel fans waiting for Team Blue to dethrone AMD will have to wait for future architectures such as Panther Lake and Nova Lake because Intel has no answers for now.

Power consumption is the only positive point of the Core Ultra 200S processors. Thanks to a series of improvements such as a new processing node and the removal of hyperthreading, Intel has managed to take a giant step forward in power consumption compared to the 14th generation Raptor Lake CPUs, a a fact that we discussed at length in our review of the Core Ultra 9 285K.

According to figures compiled by 3DCenter, the Core Ultra 9 285K consumes, on average, only 147 W in application workloads compared to 198 W for the Core i9-14900K and 160 W for the Ryzen 9 9950X. This low consumption also allows the chip lighthouse Arrow Lake to show 44% and 6% higher application power efficiency compared to Core i9-14900K and Ryzen 9 9950X, respectively.

Arrow Lake’s efficiency gains are also evident in gaming, where the Core Ultra 9 285K only consumes around 88W on average, beating the Core i9-14900K (140W) and Ryzen 9 9950X (111W ). The only processor that is both faster in games and less power hungry is the Ryzen 7 7800X3D which is in a class of its own with only 56W.

With the Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 7 265K, Arrow Lake processors have an application efficiency advantage of 33% and 42% compared to the Core i5-14600K and Core i7-14700K, respectively. However, the Ryzen 7 9700X is still more efficient in applications than the Core Ultra 5 245K by 16%, while the Ryzen 9 9900X is behind the Core Ultra 7 265K by a margin of 9%.

Finally, gaming power consumption of the Core Ultra 5 and Ultra 7 is lower than their 14th Gen rivals and AMD Zen 5, at just 68W and 80W, respectively.

In summary, Intel’s Arrow Lake chips appear to be aimed at fans moving from one older architecture to another or looking for processors that prioritize efficiency over raw performance. For everyone else, there are clearly better options on the market.

Buy the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K | Ultra 7 265K on Amazon