
Intel has officially launched its Arrow Lake-S desktop processors with the Core Ultra 200S branding. Featuring a mix of “Lion Cove” P-cores and “Skymont” E-cores, these CPUs go head to head against AMD’s Ryzen 9000 family. The results are mostly balanced, except when you look at gaming performance. AMD’s Ryzen 7000X3D processors which have been out for over a year are faster than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Even Intel admits this.

According to Robert Hallock, the VP and GM for Intel’s Client AI and Technical Marketing, we should see “about a 5% deficit” compared to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the current fastest gaming CPU. The 5% figure is a first-party estimate, so don’t be surprised if third-party reviews come up with a larger delta of up to 10% or more.
We showed some data on the 7950X3D. Based on my understanding of the performance, that part is within a couple of percents so I think we will be about 5 percent back versus X3D which we feel really really good about considering that we have just the cache that’s built within the CPU and the great IPC of the product so you’ll see about a 5% deficit, I want to be clear about that.
Robert Hallock, VP & GM, Client AI & Technical Marketing, Intel

Intel’s Arrow Lake-S processors will feature the same core counts as the existing Raptor Lake-R family, minus hyper-threading and lower boost clocks (5.7GHz for the 285K vs. 6.2GHz for the 14900KS). The L2 cache is up by 50% to 3 MB, and the power has been reduced to 250W. Conversely, the memory and L3 cache latency are down considerably, leading to lackluster gaming performance.
To make up for the less-than-satisfactory gaming performance and the recent Raptor Lake instability debacle, Intel has priced its Core Ultra 200S lineup lower than preceding releases:
- AMD’s Ryzen 9950X costs $750, while the Core Ultra 9 285K starts at $630.
- The Ryzen 9 9900X costs $449 and the Ryzen 7 7700X is priced at $329.
- The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K sits in between with an MSRP of $420.
- The Ryzen 5 9600X costs $279 and the Core Ultra 5 245K sits slightly higher with an MSRP of $330.
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Launches on 25th October?

According to rumors, AMD is preparing to launch the Ryzen 7 9800X3D later this month. The official reveal is expected on the 25th of October, followed by retail availability on the 11th of November. The 9800X3D is expected to feature the same 8-core structure with 64 MB of stacked L3 cache (96 MB overall). The base clock is reportedly 4.8 GHz, with an all-core boost of 5.2 GHz. It should cost $450 to $500 at launch.