Intel's Core Ultra 5 250K Plus fixes what the 200 series got wrong, delivering blistering productivity performance and competitive gaming at $200, making it one of Intel's most compelling budget CPUs yet.
Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Review: They Did It
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amstech
Posts: 2,801 +1,963
Arrow Lake rocks. I wouldnt have bought my 265K a year ago or even 3 months ago but BIOS updates and Windows patches in the past year have turned it into a solid CPU, and they dropped the price. I love having 20 cores and its 1440p gaming performance is very very very close to the coveted X3D AMD chips.
Its also very good for AI creation and rendering and pairs perfectly with my RTX 5070Ti. Nova Lake is going to crush AMD.
Its also very good for AI creation and rendering and pairs perfectly with my RTX 5070Ti. Nova Lake is going to crush AMD.
How nice AMD and Intel can finally give budget CPU's.
These CPU's should have been $200 - $220 at launch
GREED !!!
These CPU's should have been $200 - $220 at launch
GREED !!!
CapNemo72
Posts: 117 +182
Now that RAM and SSDs are expensive, new PCs being built are in big decline, which of course hurts CPU sales.
Both AMD and Intel will probably come with new models, often cheaper than usual, to entice the potential buyers.
Both AMD and Intel will probably come with new models, often cheaper than usual, to entice the potential buyers.
The Plus model is what they should have launched initially. This is too late. No one is gonna "invest" into a dead socket with today's memory prices. Not when LGA1954 is coming in less than 12 months with supposedly longer support.
GPU limited performance is hardly a viable comparison. Arrow Lake in no way with all the updates comes close to Zen 5 X3D in gaming. Especially considering Arrow Lake Plus is roughly 30% faster that the initial models and still does not beat Zen 5 X3D.
We've heard that before. We heard it before Arrow Lake launch. Somehow it managed to be even worse than their own previous series. Intel does seem to be on a better trajectory with both Panther Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh launches, but Nova Lake is going to have it's work cut out for it.
Zen 6 will move to 2nm. Introduce a new faster and lower latency interconnect. Support faster memory speeds. Increase core counts and much higher clock speeds. Cache sizes increase too. Plus naturally IPC increase from architectural changes.
There was a leak recently about a Zen 6 clocked half of that of Zen 5 while still being faster.
Nova Lake first needs to claw back the gap to Zen 5 X3D and then match or exceed Zen 6 with Zen 6 X3D coming too. Plus everything we've heard points to it being very expensive to produce. Kind of like Panther Lake was. A lot of the initial excitement died out once people saw the prices so close to Strix Halo.
Intel's and the markets current sentiment can been seen in these comments. Only 4 of them. People either dont care about intel or they have no interest with the current memory prices. Years ago it would have been unheard of a well reviewed cheaper Intel midrange CPU getting only four comments on Techspot.
How the tables have turned, huh? Used to be AMD offering MT performance galore and intel having the "x3d" chips - 7700k etc. Yet back then everyone was making fun of the 7700k calling it trash cause it lacked MT performance. Suddenly the modern day 7700k is great cause it has the amd brand, lol.
maxxcool7421
Posts: 865 +1,242
To little to late. almost no-one is building new systems from scratch as evidenced by the amazon report showing a 50% decline in cpu purchases. and now with EVERY SINGLE component (ram/ssd/video cards and even classic hard drives) being 3-4-5x as much as ''normal'' these are barely even warranted.
with nvidia looking to exit the consumer video card segment in 2026/q1-2027 and intel already stating they will focus wafer production on xeon-cpus for ai data centers (as reported by this site) this is a meaningless cpu ... the only reason to buy one is to get one before they are gone forever and everyone is forced to use thin clients.
https://www.techspot.com/news/111051-intel-selling-every-chip-can-produce-feeding-ai.html
with nvidia looking to exit the consumer video card segment in 2026/q1-2027 and intel already stating they will focus wafer production on xeon-cpus for ai data centers (as reported by this site) this is a meaningless cpu ... the only reason to buy one is to get one before they are gone forever and everyone is forced to use thin clients.
https://www.techspot.com/news/111051-intel-selling-every-chip-can-produce-feeding-ai.html
TechSavy101
Posts: 88 +109
Not bad but its on a DOA socket. No TY.
amstech
Posts: 2,801 +1,963
Lots of platforms have first year issues. If the chipset performs good and holds up 10 years, its irrelevant if the socket was quickly replaced. The 265K absolutely matches the X3D chips at 1440p (7% difference if that). As far as AMDs new chipset, we will see, right now its just speculation. Whats not speculation are Intels new CPUs, they are better then AMD across the board and these chips are just a teaser of whats to come.
No don't kid yourself, it isn't 2015 anymore, AMD CPU's are the higher quality parts now.
AMD has socket longevity, higher IPC, and they aren't selling you a bunch of weak e-cores as a marketing tactic. Intel is only starting to make a comeback because the US gov and Nvidia has bailed them out.
If this Arrow Lake refresh was what Arrow Lake chips were in the first place, the reception would've been a lot better, but now it's too little and too late. It's on a dead socket, also because of current RAM prices, Arrow Lake makes no sense for anyone buying a whole new platform.
As for market share, I couldn't care less, having solid competition from both companies is best, no one benefits when Nvidia or Intel has a near monopoly.
AMD has socket longevity, higher IPC, and they aren't selling you a bunch of weak e-cores as a marketing tactic. Intel is only starting to make a comeback because the US gov and Nvidia has bailed them out.
If this Arrow Lake refresh was what Arrow Lake chips were in the first place, the reception would've been a lot better, but now it's too little and too late. It's on a dead socket, also because of current RAM prices, Arrow Lake makes no sense for anyone buying a whole new platform.
As for market share, I couldn't care less, having solid competition from both companies is best, no one benefits when Nvidia or Intel has a near monopoly.
amstech
Posts: 2,801 +1,963
It makes sense if you get a deal on it and need a PC to last 7-10 years. It's a great platform and runs lightning fast.
As far as market share/GPU percentage I am sure you could care less, it debunks your entire argument.
You would have been better off saying how far AMD has gained, thats whats important. And the AI race is burning Intel as much as anything, everyone is trying to keep pace with Nvidia. So its nice to see Intel launch affordable, impressive CPU's and give more options to a socket while admitting the final product needs a better socket to make it perform the way they need. Intel isn't the same and I applaud AMD's resurgence, but Intel, I think, is onto something.
daffy duck
Posts: 1,101 +1,008
It's now incredibly embarrassing how far behind AMD is in real workloads for productivity in all but a few areas none of us care about. I use AMD, but Zen 6 needs to sharpen prices and value for money and that 12 core ccd can't arrive fast enough. My 9700X looks pathetic value against the 270 let alone 250 which slaughters it in the sort of stuff I do, other than Photoshop.
At least I can reuse my MB for Zen 6, although I'll bet new Zen 6 MB's will offer some nice new features and support far higher memory speeds, more PCIE 5 lanes etc.
At least I can reuse my MB for Zen 6, although I'll bet new Zen 6 MB's will offer some nice new features and support far higher memory speeds, more PCIE 5 lanes etc.
kiniku
Posts: 14 +15
Bottom line: The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus trails AMD's X3D chips in raw speed, but the difference gets pretty small at higher graphics settings. If you're all about max frames on low-res, low-detail competitive play, grab an X3D instead with your $4000.00+ GPU. Otherwise, crank up the visuals—AMD's edge fades a lot, and it'll vanish even more with any GPU slower than a 5090.
This isn't "either/or" anymore—Intel's giving you monster multi-thread for streaming, editing, whatever, plus solid gaming at a considerable discount compared to the AMD tax. AMD's going to have to drop prices considerably, but the "best CPU for gaming" myth's busted with Arrow Lake refresh, for most PC gamers.
This isn't "either/or" anymore—Intel's giving you monster multi-thread for streaming, editing, whatever, plus solid gaming at a considerable discount compared to the AMD tax. AMD's going to have to drop prices considerably, but the "best CPU for gaming" myth's busted with Arrow Lake refresh, for most PC gamers.
BadThad
Posts: 1,765 +2,028
The problem is, two types of cores are a fart.
E-core is still Intel Atom.
Since I tried Ryzen 5800X3D even with weak GPU RX6600XT, I know what X3D can do.
Now I have 5800X3D + RX9070, I have lower FPS in some games than other CPUs, because I have low CPU clocks.
5800X3D smoothly passes through errors in games like a "knife through butter".
I don't want any other CPU than X3D.
I plan to upgrade AM4 5800X3D to AM5 ZEN6 X3D.
If I wanted a cheap CPU, I would buy any X3D (like Ryzen 7500X3D).
This chip is actually very impressive. It trades blows with my R7 9700x in gaming and generally crushes it in multi-threaded workloads. It consumes more power but it is hardly a serious issue for most people. Price/perf is very good though. The only issue I see here is the platform longevity. Sadly, I think Intel should have achieved this level of performance with the first revision, it's kind of late with the next gen CPUs right around the corner.
Right, ill take your word over my experience for it.
I bought into the x3d hype and purchased a 9800x 3d day one. Gave it to a friend after a month, the thing was literally unusable, the lack of cores is very evident next to my 12900k. I guess if you are uprgading from another AMD cpu you won't notice since you are already at low core counts, but going from an Intel to an AMD chip is torture.
12900k = 8/16 P-Core + 8 E-Core = 24 Total Threads (Cinebench R24 Multi-Core - 1582)
9800X3D = 8/16 = best gaming CPU (Cinebench R24 Multi-Core - 1308)
Ryzen 9950X = 16/32 = working CPU (Cinebench R24 Multi-Core - 2340)
Right, because Intel Atom and modern E-cores are totally the same thing
Meanwhile hybrid designs are literally how Apple and ARM have been scaling performance and efficiency for years.
Obviously you didn't read the whole review.
Cinebench is a test, not real-world usage. In actual apps, like Adobe, encoding, and general multitasking, Intel’s hybrid setup, even the 5 year old 12900k often works really well and better than AMDs flagship "gaming" cpu.
1080p gaming with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090? Sure, grab a 9800X3D.
Multiplatform work + 4K gaming? Not so much.
Your point being...what exactly? That a 5 year old Intel chip is faster than a brand new 450$ amd chip? Cause...well, that's my point
I have a gaming PC, I mainly play multiplayer, I want an X3D CPU.
You need a multicore CPU, Ryzen 16 Core.
Then you upgrade (24 cores will come to the AM5 socket in a year).
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