Intel Core Ultra 9 285H makes Geekbench debut with 16-core CPU and severe throttling

A previous leak said Intel's Arrow Lake-H processors would include a mix of three different CPU core architectures: Lion Cove (P-core), Skymont (E-core) and Crestmont (LP E-core). However, a Geekbench listing of the Core Ultra 9 285H suggests otherwise. Intel is expected to debut Arrow Lake-H, Arrow Lake-HX and another Raptor Lake refresh at CES 2025.

The flagship Arrow Lake-H CPU showed up on Geekbench, where it scored 2,665 (single-core) and 15,330 (multi-core). It showed up alongside a Dell laptop with 64 GB of DDR5-6400 memory, indicating it could be a workstation-grade SKU. Notably, the Core Ultra 9 285H has 16 CPU cores in a 6+10 configuration, with the P-core boost clock set at 5.4 GHz. However, the CPU seems to be throttling a lot and doesn't run anywhere close to the advertised boost clock.

As a result, the Core Ultra 9 285H is paltry 6% faster than the Meteor Lake-based Core Ultra 9 185H (2,506/13,972) in single-core performance and 9% in multi-core. It is noticeably slower than the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 which scored 2,857 and 15,221 points in the same benchmark. Interestingly, even the Lunar Lake-based Core Ultra 9 288V has it beat in single-core performance.

While the performance will undoubtedly be better at launch, the Core Ultra 9 285H doesn't seem like that much of an improvement over Meteor Lake. Hopefully, it compensated by an increase in power efficiency, something that has been on Intel's crosshairs since Lunar Lake launched earlier this year.