Despite all the advances AMD has made with its Zen desktop CPUs in recent years, Intel has largely been able to maintain one key advantage over its longtime rival: gaming performance. For those looking to grab every frame possible from the latest AAA games, the company’s recent Core 5/7/9 often outperformed their AMD counterparts. However, historically, that performance has been achieved at the expense of power efficiency and heat. Intel’s best 13th generation processors are absolute power-hungry beasts. Its appeal is limited, especially as smaller-element PC builds become more common.
On Thursday, Intel announced details of its long-awaited Arrow Lake processors, announcing five new models that will be available on October 24th. With the new CPU, Intel is promising a paradigm shift. The company said its goal is to reduce power consumption by 40% and reduce internal package temperature by as much as 10 degrees Celsius compared to previous generation Raptor Lake chips. Judging by the benchmarks Intel shared ahead of today’s announcement, the company did just that.
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Intel’s new flagship Ultra 9 285K features a 24-core CPU design consisting of 8 “Lion Cove” performance cores and 16 “Skymont” efficiency cores, with a maximum boost clock of 5.7 GHz. Like the rest of the current Arrow Lake family, it also features a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), a first for Intel’s desktop CPUs. But these specs aren’t what’s interesting about the 285K and its siblings.
On “low-threaded” workloads, including tasks like Zoom calls and some Cinebench benchmarks, Intel clocked a 285K power consumption, up to 58% less power than the company’s 14th generation flagship, the 14900K . When it comes to gaming performance, we get even more interesting results. For example, in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Intel says the 285K ran the game 4% faster on average and consumed 165W less system power. Even in more GPU-intensive games like Black Myth: Wukong, the 285K delivers promising efficiency gains, with Intel saying the CPU consumes 34 watts less total system power compared to the 14900K. Masu.
These efficiency gains translate into impressive thermal gains as well, with Intel saying that data shows that running 285K runs about 13 degrees Celsius on average less than 14900K while loading games. The new processors offer similar gaming performance even when users limit power consumption from Intel’s default 250W to 175W or 125W. This is exciting news for anyone looking to keep their CPU voltages low or planning to use an ITX case and motherboard in their next build.
Robert Halleck, general manager of Intel’s AI and technical marketing division, said: “I’m confident that your test results match the numbers we’re talking about today.”
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In theory, Arrow Lake is exactly what Intel needs to return to sustainability. This is easily the most efficient family of desktop processors the company has released in years. But it’s less clear whether that will be enough to turn Inter’s fortunes around.
In the short term, the company will face ever more competitive rival AMD. In the long run, it’s hard to say how much of Arrow Lake’s efficiency can be attributed solely to Intel’s engineers. The company claimed that it would combine its 20A manufacturing process with TSMC’s 3-nanometer technology to make new processors in 2022. But Intel reported a loss of $1.6 billion in the second quarter of this year and announced it would cut more than 15,000 jobs in an effort to cut costs by $10 billion. Part of that plan included completely outsourcing Arrow Lake’s manufacturing to a third party. At the time, Intel did not specifically name TSMC. But the list of companies that can produce silicon at the density and scale needed for Arrow Lake is very short. Intel has reportedly stalled recently on ramping up its next-generation 18A process, so it’s clear the company still has a long way to go.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K will be priced at $589 when it launches on October 24th. For those looking for a more affordable entry into Intel’s Arrow Lake ecosystem, the company will offer a 14-core Ultra 5 245KF for $294 and a 20-core Ultra 7 265K for $394. Alongside its KF sibling, which doesn’t have an integrated Intel Xe GPU, the 265K is likely to be the dark horse of Intel’s Arrow Lake series. According to the company, the 265K has an operating temperature about 15 degrees lower than the 14900K and consumes up to 188W less system power.
In addition to the new Arrow Lake processors, Intel also shared details about its upcoming Arrow Lake H laptop chips, which are expected to launch early next year.
