Presumably doomed Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus makes strong case for release with impressive Geekbench results

Intel’s latest desktop CPUs, the Core Ultra 200S Plus Arrow Lake Refresh, are here. The lineup consists of only two processors, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, as Intel has reportedly canceled the flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus. A leaked Geekbench listing reveals that the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus would’ve been a meaningful upgrade over the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Spotted by HXL on X, the 24-core Core Ultra 9 290K Plus earned single-core and multi-core Geekbench 6.5 scores of 3,747 and 26,117, respectively. As is the case with other Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was running at +100 MHz boost clock (5.8 GHz) compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K and was using the new Intel Binary Optimization (IBOT).

The Core Ultra 9 285K clocked in single-core and multi-core Geekbench 6.5 scores of 3,260 and 21,688 in our testing. Compared to these median scores, the leaked Core Ultra 9 290K Plus shows 15% faster single-core and 20% better multi-core performance. This also puts the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus 10% and 22% ahead of the Ryzen 9 9950X in single-core and multi-core Geekbench 6.5 tests, respectively.

In other words, had Intel launched the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus alongside the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, it would’ve easily beaten the Ryzen 9 9950X in both single-core and multi-core departments.

We don’t know the exact reason why the company scrapped the flagship Arrow Lake Refresh part. It could’ve been a financial decision, as the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus essentially matches the Ryzen 9 9950X for much less money. You can currently buy the Ryzen 9 9950X for around $513 on Amazon, which makes the $299 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus more than $200 cheaper.

All in all, the Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs are great releases. If you are already on the new LGA1851 socket and want a healthy performance upgrade that will hold you over until Nova Lake, the Core Ultra 200S Plus chips make a lot of sense.