Intel’s Core Ultra 200S desktop CPUs are 2x faster and $100 cheaper — a second chance at Arrow Lake's first bad impression

Intel finally thinks it's done gaming processors correctly, calling the newly-announced Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 250K Plus its “fastest gaming desktop processors ever.” For gamers who demand only the best from their rigs, these sound like exciting new chips.

One of the leading chip-makers says the 24-core, 5.5GHz turbo Core Ultra 7 270K Plus can beat both the Raptor Lake i9-14900K and the Arrow Lake Ultra 9 285K in gaming performance. That's all well and good, but those chips had significant issues — the real question is whether it can hang with or beat AMD’s Ryzen 7 9700X, which falls in the power range.

With the 270K Plus starting at $300 and the 250K Plus at $200, these are reasonably priced and competitive (which is nice in a RAMmageddon world where PC part prices are going through the roof).

Unfortunately, Intel's graphs don't tell much of a story as the company compares these new gaming chips to the 265K and 245K, which are hardly the highest-performing options. It would have been helpful to compare them to AMD's options, or even to a current Intel gaming chip, to see how much of a boost players can expect.

Fortunately, we have the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 250K Plus in hand, so we'll be able to share a range of benchmarks and comparisons once we finalize our reviews.

Intel heavily touted its Intel Binary Optimization Tool, which it describes as a "binary translation layer optimization capability that can improve native performance in select games."

That's probably why games like Assassin’s Creed: Shadows only see a 4% increase from the 265K to the 270K Plus, while Shadow of the Tomb Raider increases by as much as 39% in performance.

Here are some of the other notable specs of the new Intel Chips:

Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

• 24 cores (8 P-cores and 12 E-cores)
• 5.5 GHz Max
• DDR5 7200 MT/s support
• Early support for 4-Rank CUDIMM memory

Intel Core Ultra 7 250K Plus

• 18 cores (6 P-cores and 12 E-cores)
• 5.3 GHz Max
• DDR5 7200 MT/s support
• Early support for 4-Rank CUDIMM memory

Both chips are scheduled to hit store shelves on March 26, so you won't need to wait too long to snag one if you're looking to build a new PC. Just be prepared for the rising cost of RAM and other components before you go out and get anything.

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