Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 7 265KF beats Core i7-14700K in multicore benchmark but loses to AMD Ryzen 9000

It looks like the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF is stacking up to be quite the performer, despite Intel's decision to drop Hyper-Threading support for its next-gen desktop CPUs, although it does seem to fall somewhat short of AMD's Ryzen 9000 series in some areas, according to recent benchmarks. 

According to a recently leaked V-Ray render benchmark result shared on X, the Core Ultra 7 265KF is around 6% faster than the Core i7-14700K. As far as scores go, the 20-core Arrow Lake CPU managed 33,036 in one run and 33,270 in another, pulling firmly ahead of the Intel Core i7-14700K, which averages 31,525 in the same benchmark. This also puts the Ultra 7 265KF a solid 24% ahead of the likes of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, which scored just 25,337 in its fastest run.

That said, the upcoming Core Ultra 7 265KF is a whopping 32% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, which averages 48,685 vsamples in the V-Ray render benchmark. Even the 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, with its average V-Ray score of 40,034 is a solid 20% faster than the Core Ultra 7 265KF.  

This performance discrepancy comes despite the Core Ultra 7 265K reportedly featuring a power draw of 177–250 W, compared to the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, which has a much lower power ceiling of around 162 W, according to Anandtech's testing. This doesn't necessarily bode well for Intel's upcoming CPU release, even though the Core Ultra 7 265KF does seem to handily overpower its AMD Ryzen 7 9700X counterpart, although this is only one benchmark on pre-release hardware, making it hardly a perfect science. 

Regardless of the numbers AMD and Intel assign these processors — Ryzen 7 and Core Ultra 7 indicating roughly similar performance — the reality is that, aside from sales, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (curr. $449 on Amazon) can generally be had for roughly the same price as the Intel Core i7-14700K (curr. $359.85 at 23% off on Amazon), making it a much fairer comparison.