Intel Core 5 Ultra 250K Plus demolishes AMD Ryzen 5 9600X in multi-core benchmark, courtesy of 18-core setup

We have covered several "Arrow Lake Refresh" leaks in the past, including benchmark numbers. Now, the upcoming Core Ultra 250K Plus has appeared on Passmark, and the performance improvements sure do look impressive.

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will replace the 14-core Core Ultra 5 245K, and is expected to pack an 18-core setup with 12 E-cores and 6 P-cores. A previous Geekbench listing of the chip indicated almost identical single-core and much worse multicore performance, which was most likely an early sample that was unable to stretch its legs.

The 18-core Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is quite the multi-core beast

The Passmark result, however, tells a different story. The single-thread score is only around 2.1% faster, while the multicore score is a whopping 16.3% faster. Clearly, the four additional E-cores are pulling their weight, further aided by the 100 MHz faster P-core and E-core boost clocks. 

Compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X (currently $190 on Amazon), the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is now over a whopping 66% faster in the multithreaded test. In single-core, the 250K Plus is ahead by a much more modest 4%. This is to be expected, since the 245K is already quite a bit faster than the 9600X in benchmarks. Of course, the 9600X was the clear winner for gaming performance, and it might still be even after the 250K Plus arrives.

Apart from the aforementioned Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, the Arrow Lake Refresh lineup will also consist of the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which will also feature four more E-cores with higher turbo clocks. The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, however, was cancelled, owing to product overlap that exceeded Intel's tastes.