We’re edging closer to the launch of Intel’s Arrow Lake-S processors, the first true generational upgrade since Alder Lake-S (Nov 2021). The chipmaker is expected to launch the Core Ultra 200 (previously, 15th Gen) CPUs sometime in mid-to-late October, so it won’t be long before we see them in action. Interestingly, while the specifications are more or less known, few benchmark scores have surfaced.
The leaked results include V-Ray 6 (via HXL) and Cinebench R23, both rendering tests. In the former, the Core Ultra 9 285K scores 44,883 points, a notch lower than the Ryzen 9 9950X (50,285 points), but ~20% faster than the Core i9-14900K. We reckon the loss of hyper-threading is causing a notable impact here. Either way, AMD seems to be in a good position here.
The second leaked benchmark is Cinebench R23, where the Core Ultra 9 285K scores ~2,000 points in the single-core test (via Moore’s Law is Dead). Unfortunately, the sample here is limited to a boost clock of just 4.5 GHz, down from its retail boost of 5.7 GHz. The final market samples are expected to net single-core scores of 2,500 to 2,600 points in the same benchmark, placing it 12-15% ahead of the Ryzen 9 9950X and the Core i9-14900K.
That said, don’t expect the same kind of gains in gaming workloads (or so claim the rumors). Being Intel’s first chiplet/tiled desktop processors, there may be a higher latency penalty than preceding generations, potentially offsetting the IPC, process, and other architectural uplifts.
Remember, for gaming and other real-time 3D workloads, latency is key to improving framerates (and frametimes). It’s one of the reasons AMD’s Ryzen 7000X3D processors perform so well in old and new games alike. They do this by storing the entire game logic on-die (cache), reducing the latency spikes caused by trips to the much slower DRAM.
Intel’s Core Ultra 200 processors, codenamed Arrow Lake-S are expected to launch in the second half of October, replacing an ailing Raptor Lake-S lineup. These chips will be key to Team Blue’s future in the consumer space, as they’ll form the basis of its upcoming CPUs for the next couple of years.
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