Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K Review

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

I've had a mates of pre-briefings pinch Intel complete nan past mates of months astir Intel Arrow Lake, truthful I can't opportunity I'm amazed by nan Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, but it doesn't mean enthusiasts are going to beryllium immoderate little disappointed pinch what we sewage successful nan end.

Both Core Ultra chips efficaciously lucifer nan capacity of nan chips they are replacing, and while I've been saying for a while now that we person to extremity looking astatine capacity arsenic nan only metric that matters, nan ratio gains offered by these chips are not important capable to really merit nan finance if you're rocking a 13th-gen Intel spot aliases better.

The caller chips do travel pinch immoderate architecture changes worthy of note, though, and they aren’t each useless for consumers. For starters, nan chips travel equipped pinch an NPU, nan first Intel desktops to do so, and nan caller Intel Arc integrated GPU offers immoderate improved graphics capabilities that will make a existent quality for immoderate AIO (all-in-one) PCs.

However, these are mostly going to beryllium unnecessary for conscionable astir immoderate gamer aliases contented creator retired location since astir desktops are going to person a discrete graphics card that will tally AI circles astir nan NPU successful these chips, and make nan Intel Arc iGPU beautiful overmuch a non-factor successful thing different than nan astir budget gaming PC from a mates of years ago.

For immoderate folks, unfortunately, Intel Arrow Lake misses nan target they wanted it to hit, and pinch beardown title from AMD’s Ryzen 9000-series, these aren't nan best processors for gaming aliases contented creation. But, Intel has to commencement location arsenic it shifts to a caller platform, and it managed to nutrient a very different benignant of spot complete its predecessors without giving up excessively overmuch connected nan capacity front, which is nary easy feat.

Ultimately, they're perfectly good chips if you're buying them successful a prebuilt PC aliases if you're coming successful from 11th-gen Intel aliases older (or making nan move from AMD), since you'll person to bargain all-new kit anyway, truthful you mightiness arsenic good group yourself up for Nova Lake adjacent year. But anyone pinch a Raptor Lake spot isn't going to spot immoderate existent use from these, truthful they're amended disconnected waiting for Nova Lake successful 2025 to make nan jump.

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 disposable now successful nan US, UK, and Australia, priced astatine $589 / £548.99 / AU$1,099 and $309 / £289.99 / AU$589, respectively.

While nan prices for these 2 chips enactment nan aforesaid aliases travel successful somewhat little than their predecessors, which is good, location are a bunch of added costs to upgrade to these chips... which is bad. First, they require an LGA 1851 chipset, truthful you’re going to person to bargain a caller motherboard successful bid to usage them. They besides don’t support DDR4 RAM, truthful you’re apt going to person to bargain caller DDR5 RAM arsenic well.

The LGA 1851 socket does return nan aforesaid CPU coolers arsenic an LGA 1700 socket, though, truthful if you person a 12th-gen aliases amended processor, astatine slightest your cooler will fit.

Against AMD’s latest, nan Core Ultra 9 285K is amended priced than AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, but much costly than nan Ryzen 9 9900X. The Core Ultra 5 245K is somewhat much costly 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 & features

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K are recently architected desktop processors, powered by nan aforesaid Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores recovered successful nan Intel Meteor Lake chips released precocious past twelvemonth for laptops.

Intel Arrow Lake is fundamentally Intel Meteor Lake for desktops, and truthful it besides features nan aforesaid Intel NPU 3 13 TOPS neural processor arsenic Meteor Lake, and nan aforesaid Intel Arc Alchemist integrated GPU pinch 4 Xe cores (including 4 ray tracing cores) arsenic its laptop cousin.

The max timepiece speeds of nan Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 5 245K are somewhat little connected capacity cores (though pinch a higher guidelines frequency) and higher crossed nan committee connected nan ratio cores complete nan Core i9-14900K and Core i5-14600K, respectively.

The maximum magnitude of RAM is unchanged astatine 192GB, though nan Core Ultra chips do not support DDR4 RAM, but they tin support faster DDR5 representation up to 6,400MT/s.

Other than that, nan TDP of nan 2 Core Ultra chips is fundamentally unchanged from nan 14th-gen chips they’re replacing, but they do person a 5°C higher TjMax (Tjunction max, which is nan maximum thermal junction somesthesia that a processor tin deed earlier it lowers capacity to forestall overheating), truthful nan chips won’t commencement to throttle until they deed 105°C.

• Features: 3.5 / 5

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

Well, we’ve yet travel to nan capacity conception of nan review, and I wish I had amended news for you, but astir of you will beryllium disappointed.

Starting pinch synthetic performance, nan Core Ultra 9 285K is simply a very mixed container vis-a-vis nan Core i9-14900K and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X.

In immoderate tests for illustration Geekbench 6.2, nan Core Ultra 9 outperforms nan 14900K successful single-core capacity by astir 8%, only to suffer retired by astir nan aforesaid successful Cinebench R23’s single-core benchmark. Meanwhile, successful Cinebench R23’s multi-core performance, nan Core Ultra 9 285K comes successful astir 12% faster than nan 14900K and is fundamentally tied pinch nan AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.

The Core Ultra 5 245K, meanwhile, is efficaciously moreover pinch nan Core i5-14600K, but fares overmuch amended successful PCMark 10’s Home CPU benchmark, showing a astir 14.5% capacity boost complete nan 14600K and a 5.6% amended showing than nan AMD Ryzen 5 9600X.

In position of mean imaginative performance, nan Core Ultra 9 285K does somewhat amended than nan 14900K but somewhat worse than nan Ryzen 9 9950X — it’s substantially amended than nan Ryzen 9 9900X, connected average, however.

The Core Ultra 5 245K, meantime does somewhat worse, connected average, than nan Core i5-14600K, but comes retired astir 23% amended connected mean than nan Ryzen 5 9600X.

The gaming capacity of nan Core Ultra chips was easy nan biggest disappointment, however, and is wherever these 2 chips really falter against Raptor Lake Refresh.

The Core Ultra 9 285K came successful astir 14% slower successful gaming capacity than nan Core i9-14900K (though astir 7-8% amended than nan Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X).

The Core Ultra 5 245K, meanwhile, came successful astir 9% slower than nan i5-14600K, and only astir 4% faster than nan Ryzen 5 9600X.

Needless to say, if you’re looking for nan champion processor for gaming, you’ll want to look astatine nan AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D aliases hold to spot what nan upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D does later this year.

When each nan scores are tabulated and nan last averages calculated, nan Core Ultra 9 285K shows somewhat amended multi-core performance, somewhat little single-core performance, somewhat amended imaginative performance, and overmuch worse gaming capacity against its predecessor.

The Core Ultra 5 245K is mostly slower for conscionable astir everything compared to nan Core i5-14600K, though it does person overmuch amended productivity performance, truthful this will make a awesome spot for affordable AIO PCs without discrete graphics.

The existent disappointment pinch Arrow Lake, though, lies pinch its power efficiency... aliases deficiency thereof. Most group don’t moreover request nan capacity of nan Intel Core i9-14900K aliases moreover nan Intel Core i5-14600K, truthful I’d beryllium good pinch little capacity if it meant that location was overmuch little powerfulness draw, but nan Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 5 245K max retired astatine 90.5% and 93.3% of nan powerfulness of their predecessors, respectively.

That’s still overmuch excessively high, and astatine that point, you mightiness arsenic good conscionable instrumentality pinch Raptor Lake Refresh and undervolt nan CPU.

Ultimately, fixed nan importantly higher costs of making nan move to these processors from nan LGA 1700 chips, nan capacity and ratio conscionable don’t make these compelling purchases connected their own.

If you’re shopping for nan best prebuilt gaming PC though, though, I won’t beryllium excessively worried astir picking betwixt 1 pinch a 14th-gen spot aliases these caller Core Ultras. You’re not going to announcement nan difference.

• Performance: 3.5 / 5

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

Buy nan Intel Core Ultra 9 285K aliases Intel Core Ultra 5 245K if...

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

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

When I trial processors, I put them done a rigorous process that takes into relationship synthetic benchmarks, imaginative workloads, gaming performance, and much to get astatine my scores.

I usage manufacture modular devices for illustration Geekbench, Cinebench, and PCMark, arsenic good arsenic imaginative apps for illustration Adobe Photoshop, Blender, and Handbrake.

For gaming, I usage built-in benchmarks for CPU-intensive games for illustration Total War: Warhammer III connected debased graphics settings astatine 1080p to amended isolate a CPU's effect connected nan game's framerates.

Finally, I make judge to usage nan aforesaid strategy for common-socket processors, nan fastest RAM and SSD, and nan astir powerful GPU and motherboards disposable to support consistency wherever imaginable to guarantee that CPU scores are comparable.

With each caller processor I review, I retest erstwhile processors I've reviewed successful bid to get updated scores for each, aft installing nan latest strategy and BIOS updates.

I've tested and retested 2 generations of processors much times than I tin count complete nan past mates of years, truthful I americium intimately acquainted pinch really these chips perform, and my heavy machine subject and publicity inheritance allows maine to put each of this testing information into its due discourse for consumers truthful they tin make nan correct prime erstwhile shopping for a caller processor.

• Originally reviewed October 2024