Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra 9 285K, the flagship of theCore Ultra 200Slineup, has been spotted in CPU-Z (viamomomo_us) and Blender (viaHXL). The initial performance is somewhat disappointing; however, that may be attributed to the test bench used and the operating conditions, at least in CPU-Z.
Ironically, CPU-Z indicates that this CPU is manufactured using a “7nm” process. However, in reality, the Compute Tile uses TSMC’s N3B (3nm) node. Anyhow, here, the 285K is clocked at 5.5 GHz and 4.6 GHz across all P-cores and E-cores, respectively. The validation statistics show that the CPU is running at 100 degrees Celsius, so do not take this benchmark as an indication of the final performance.
Speaking of the frequencies, the Uncore or ring bus is clocked at 3.8 GHz, which is around 700 MHz lower thanRaptor Lake. It explains the subpar gaming performance since the ring bus connects the CPU cores to the memory controller.
Moving over to the performance side, it is important to mention that the CPU is not running at its peak potential due to thermal throttling. The test bench features 2 x 16GB of CL32 DDR5-5600 memory, the ASRock Z890 Steel Legend WiFI motherboard, and an RTX 4080 Super.
In the single-core category, the Core Ultra 9 285K scores 909 points, struggling even against its predecessor. Surprisingly, in multi-core, the Core Ultra 9 285K outpaces theCore i9-14900Kby around 12% despite being thermally throttled. It appears that Skymont’s IPC uplifts have made up for removing Hyper-Threading.
In Blender v4.2, we are unaware of the test bench used, so thesebenchmarksdo not reflect the final performance, which we’ll see on October 24. Considering that, the Core Ultra 9 285K lands around 10% faster than theCore i9-14900KSbut loses to AMD’sRyzen 9 9950Xby a fair margin. The 20-core Core Ultra 7 265K also appeared in this test and is neck to neck against the AMDRyzen 9 9900X.
With regard to these benchmarks, Arrow Lake’s focal point will be efficiency, not performance. The average generation-on-generation uplift is in the ballpark of 10-15%, so Arrow Lake will need some serious efficiency gains to capture consumer interest. We’ll know the exact numbers soon enough, as these CPUs are scheduled to hit shelves in just over a week.
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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
