Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX fails to outperform Core i9-14900HX in Cinebench R23 single-core test

At its CES 2025 launch, Intel didn't show off any first-party benchmarks of its Arrow Lake HX CPUs and made vague claims about their generational performance uplift despite it being the first proper HX-class CPU from Intel after two generations. A leaked Cinebench R23 score (via @94G8LA on X) of the Core Ultra 9 275HX gives us a rough idea about why that was the case.

It scores 2,161 points in Cinebench R23's single-core test. That is slightly lower than the two-generation-old Core i9-14900HX, which averaged at 2,181 points in our benchmark database. Thankfully, the Core Ultra 9 275HX does remarkably better in the multicore test with a score of 35,481 points. It represents an 18% uplift over its Raptor Lake-based counterpart.

While the above score might get marginally better with BIOS updates and the likes, it is clear that Arrow Lake HX won't be that much faster than Raptor Lake, especially in gaming. This is concerning because many high-end gaming laptops unveiled at CES 2025 came with a Core Ultra 9 275HX. Curiously, Intel has a slightly higher-spec version (Core Ultra 9 285HX) that is yet to power...anything, and one can't help but why OEMs picked the 275HX over it.