Intel officially kills Core Ultra 9 290K Plus at the last minute

Intel has officially confirmed that the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus will not reach the market, putting an end to months of leaks and speculation surrounding the new flagship Arrow Lake Refresh SKU. The company told PC Games Hardware that it is prioritizing more widely positioned models within the Core Ultra 200S Plus lineup.

According to Intel Germany Tech Communication Manager Florian Maislinger, the recently launched Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus processors already meet the company’s performance and value targets. As a result, introducing an additional flagship-tier SKU was deemed unnecessary.

Intel is excited to deliver exceptional value with our Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus series processors. The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus are positioned to deliver outstanding gaming performance and incredible value compared to our competition. Our objective was to maximize performance for the desktop SKUs that are most widely available. As a result, Intel is not launching a U9 290K Plus SKU. — Florian Maislinger, Tech Communication Manager, Intel Germany

The cancellation follows earlier roadmap updates shared with partners, when the 290K Plus was quietly removed from the company’s plans, but the new statement marks the first public confirmation from Intel.

The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus had already appeared in leaks and even in benchmark listings, suggesting that development had progressed significantly. Reports indicate that engineering samples were circulating both internally and externally, pointing to a late-stage cancellation decision.

The cancellation also appears to be tied to product overlap. The 290K Plus was expected to feature a 24-core configuration that would have been very close to the existing Core Ultra 9 285K and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, leaving Intel little reason to add another model to the lineup. PC Games Hardware notes that the 270K Plus can already match or even outperform the 285K in some tests thanks to software and hardware optimizations, which further reduces the need for a new flagship.

For now, that means the Core Ultra 9 285K remains Intel’s top desktop chip, while the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus sits below it in the refreshed Arrow Lake family. Intel is not expected to introduce a new flagship desktop processor for LGA 1851 until the next-generation Nova Lake-S platform arrives.