Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: One-minute evaluate

I’ve had a few pre-briefings with Intel over the last couple of months about Intel Arrow Lake, so I will be able to’t say I’m shocked by way of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, but it surely doesn’t suggest fanatics are going to be any much less disillusioned with what we were given in any case.

Both Core Ultra chips successfully fit the efficiency of the chips they’re changing, and whilst I’ve been pronouncing for some time now that we need to forestall taking a look at efficiency as the one metric that issues, the potency good points introduced by way of those chips don’t seem to be considerable sufficient to actually advantage the funding if you are rocking a Thirteenth-gen Intel chip or higher.

The new chips do include some structure adjustments worthy of word, although, they usually aren’t all unnecessary for shoppers. For starters, the chips come provided with an NPU, the primary Intel desktops to take action, and the brand new Intel Arc built-in GPU provides some advanced graphics features that may make an actual distinction for some AIO (all-in-one) PCs.

However, those are in large part going to be useless for almost any gamer or content material author available in the market since maximum desktops are going to have a discrete graphics card that may run AI circles across the NPU in those chips, and make the Intel Arc iGPU just about a non-factor in anything else instead of probably the most funds gaming PC from a few years in the past.

For some other people, sadly, Intel Arrow Lake misses the objective they sought after it to hit, and with robust festival from AMD’s Ryzen 9000-series, those are not the most productive processors for gaming or content material advent. But, Intel has to begin someplace because it shifts to a brand new platform, and it controlled to provide an overly other more or less chip over its predecessors with out giving up an excessive amount of at the efficiency entrance, which is not any simple feat.

Ultimately, they are completely positive chips if you are purchasing them in a prebuilt PC or if you are coming in from Eleventh-gen Intel or older (or making the transfer from AMD), since you will have to purchase all-new equipment anyway, so it’s possible you’ll as neatly set your self up for Nova Lake subsequent 12 months. But any individual with a Raptor Lake chip is not going to look any actual take pleasure in those, so they are at an advantage looking ahead to Nova Lake in 2025 to make the bounce.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: Price & availability

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K are to be had now in the United States, UK, and Australia, priced at $589 / £548.99 / AU$1,099 and $309 / £289.99 / AU$589, respectively.

While the costs for those two chips keep the similar or are available reasonably not up to their predecessors, which is just right, there are a number of added prices to improve to those chips… which is unhealthy. First, they require an LGA 1851 chipset, so that you’re going to have to shop for a brand new motherboard to be able to use them. They additionally don’t beef up DDR4 RAM, so that you’re most likely going to have to shop for new DDR5 RAM as neatly.

The LGA 1851 socket does take the similar CPU coolers as an LGA 1700 socket, although, so when you’ve got a Twelfth-gen or higher processor, no less than your cooler will have compatibility.

Against AMD’s newest, the Core Ultra 9 285K is healthier priced than AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, however costlier than the Ryzen 9 9900X. The Core Ultra 5 245K is reasonably costlier than AMD’s competing Ryzen 5 9600X.

• Value: 3 / 5

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: Specs

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: Chipset & options

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K are newly architected desktop processors, powered by way of the similar Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores discovered within the Intel Meteor Lake chips launched past due remaining 12 months for laptops.

Intel Arrow Lake is largely Intel Meteor Lake for desktops, and so it additionally options the similar Intel NPU 3 13 TOPS neural processor as Meteor Lake, and the similar Intel Arc Alchemist built-in GPU with 4 Xe cores (together with 4 ray tracing cores) as its computer cousin.

The max clock speeds of the Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 5 245K are reasonably decrease on efficiency cores (although with a better base frequency) and better around the board at the potency cores over the Core i9-14900K and Core i5-14600K, respectively.

The most quantity of RAM is unchanged at 192GB, although the Core Ultra chips don’t beef up DDR4 RAM, however they are able to beef up sooner DDR5 reminiscence as much as 6,400MT/s.

Other than that, the TDP of the 2 Core Ultra chips is largely unchanged from the 14th-gen chips they’re changing, however they do have a 5°C upper TjMax (Tjunction max, which is the utmost thermal junction temperature {that a} processor can hit sooner than it lowers efficiency to forestall overheating), so the chips gained’t begin to throttle till they hit 105°C.

• Features: 3.5 / 5

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: Performance

Well, we’ve in the end come to the efficiency phase of the evaluate, and I want I had higher information for you, however maximum of you’ll be disillusioned.

Starting with artificial efficiency, the Core Ultra 9 285K is an overly combined bag vis-a-vis the Core i9-14900K and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X.

In some assessments like Geekbench 6.2, the Core Ultra 9 outperforms the 14900K in single-core efficiency by way of about 8%, most effective to lose out by way of about the similar in Cinebench R23’s single-core benchmark. Meanwhile, in Cinebench R23’s multi-core efficiency, the Core Ultra 9 285K is available in about 12% sooner than the 14900K and is largely tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.

The Core Ultra 5 245K, in the meantime, is successfully even with the Core i5-14600K, however fares a lot better in PCMark 10’s Home CPU benchmark, appearing a more or less 14.5% efficiency spice up over the 14600K and a 5.6% higher appearing than the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X.

In phrases of reasonable inventive efficiency, the Core Ultra 9 285K does reasonably higher than the 14900K however reasonably worse than the Ryzen 9 9950X — it’s considerably higher than the Ryzen 9 9900X, on reasonable, then again.

The Core Ultra 5 245K, in the meantime does reasonably worse, on reasonable, than the Core i5-14600K, however comes out just about 23% higher on reasonable than the Ryzen 5 9600X.

The gaming efficiency of the Core Ultra chips was once simply the largest sadness, then again, and is the place those two chips actually falter in opposition to Raptor Lake Refresh.

The Core Ultra 9 285K got here in about 14% slower in gaming efficiency than the Core i9-14900K (although about 7-8% higher than the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X).

The Core Ultra 5 245K, in the meantime, got here in about 9% slower than the i5-14600K, and most effective about 4% sooner than the Ryzen 5 9600X.

Needless to mention, in case you’re searching for the most productive processor for gaming, you’ll wish to take a look at the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D or wait to look what the approaching AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D does later this 12 months.

When all of the ratings are tabulated and the overall averages calculated, the Core Ultra 9 285K presentations reasonably higher multi-core efficiency, reasonably decrease single-core efficiency, reasonably higher inventive efficiency, and far worse gaming efficiency in opposition to its predecessor.

The Core Ultra 5 245K is usually slower for almost the whole thing in comparison to the Core i5-14600K, although it does have a lot better productiveness efficiency, so this will likely make a really perfect chip for reasonably priced AIO PCs with out discrete graphics.

The actual sadness with Arrow Lake, although, lies with its power potency… or lack thereof. Most other folks don’t even want the efficiency of the Intel Core i9-14900K and even the Intel Core i5-14600K, so I’d be positive with decrease efficiency if it supposed that there was once a lot much less energy draw, however the Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 5 245K max out at 90.5% and 93.3% of the ability in their predecessors, respectively.

That’s nonetheless a lot too prime, and at that time, it’s possible you’ll as neatly simply stick to Raptor Lake Refresh and undervolt the CPU.

Ultimately, given the considerably upper value of creating the transfer to those processors from the LGA 1700 chips, the efficiency and potency simply don’t make those compelling purchases on their very own.

If you’re purchasing for the most productive prebuilt gaming PC although, although, I gained’t be too anxious about selecting between one with a 14th-gen chip or those new Core Ultras. You’re no longer going to note the adaptation.

• Performance: 3.5 / 5

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: Should you purchase it?

Buy the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K or Intel Core Ultra 5 245K if…

Don’t purchase them if…

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K & Intel Core Ultra 5 245K: Also Consider

How I tested the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K

When I test processors, I put them through a rigorous process that takes into account synthetic benchmarks, creative workloads, gaming performance, and more to arrive at my scores.

I use industry standard tools like Geekbench, Cinebench, and PCMark, as well as creative apps like Adobe Photoshop, Blender, and Handbrake.

For gaming, I use built-in benchmarks for CPU-intensive games like Total War: Warhammer III on low graphics settings at 1080p to better isolate a CPU’s impact on the game’s framerates.

Finally, I make sure to use the same system for common-socket processors, the fastest RAM and SSD, and the most powerful GPU and motherboards available to maintain consistency wherever possible to ensure that CPU scores are comparable.

With each new processor I review, I retest previous processors I’ve reviewed in order to get updated scores for each, after installing the latest system and BIOS updates.

I’ve tested and retested two generations of processors more times than I can count over the last couple of years, so I am intimately familiar with how these chips perform, and my deep computer science and journalism background allows me to put all of this testing data into its proper context for consumers so they can make the right choice when shopping for a new processor.

• Originally reviewed October 2024