Leaked Intel Arrow Lake benchmarks reveal Core Ultra 7 265K performance dominance over AMD Zen 5

Intel's new Arrow Lake desktop CPUs look like they should start appearing on store shelves around October, presenting a new challenge to AMD's Zen 5 lineup. There are no official performance benchmarks from reviews of the new processors just yet. However, new supposed CPU-Z performance benchmark leaks suggest the new Core Ultra 7 CPU will be about as fast as the outgoing Core i9-14900K and measurably faster than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X in single-thread workloads. 

According to the leaked benchmark, which first appeared in a Baidu forum post, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K scores around 16,274.6 points in the multi-thread test and 919.1 points in the single-core test. Looking at the CPU-Z database, that puts the Ultra 7 265K at around the same level as the outgoing Intel Core i9-14900K, which scored 16,518 points. While AMD's latest Ryzen 9 9950X handily outclasses the Core Ultra 7 265K with a score of 17,941 — a sturdy 10% lead — Team Red's Ryzen 9 is meant to compete with the faster Core Ultra 9 285K. 

In terms of single-thread scores, the Core Ultra 7 265K looks to be around 1% slower than the Core i9-14900K and KF, which bodes well for gaming use cases. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, however, isn't that far behind in single-threaded workloads, with a CPU-Z benchmark score of 896, which is only 2.5% slower than the Core Ultra 7 265K, according to the leaked benchmark's claims. AMD has clearly made some progress in the single-core department, because the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X only managed a mere 755 points, which is a whopping 17.8% slower than the Core Ultra 7 265K. 

There are a few caveats to these performance claims, though. For one: These are leaks, so they're to be taken with a grain of salt. Secondly, it's entirely likely that performance figures may change before the launch of Arrow Lake. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, one benchmarking program isn't the be-all and end-all of CPU performance, and real-world performance is likely to vary greatly from workload to workload. 

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is expected to be a 20-core, 20-thread CPU with eight high-power P-cores and 12 low-power E-cores. Notably, it seems as though Intel will skip Hyper-Threading altogether with the launch of Arrow Lake. 

The AMD Ryzen 7 7950X Zen 4 CPU is currently discounted to $420.64 on Amazon, thanks to the recent Zen 5 launch and Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs.