Intel has already officially announced the Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake desktop CPUs earlier this month, revealing all five SKUs, and detailing the Lion Cove P-cores and Skymont E-cores. Intel promised an IPC uplift f 9 percent compared for P-cores (compared to Raptor Cove), and 32 percent IPC uplift for E-cores (compared to Gracemont), as well as detailing the new XE-LPG GPU, new NPU3, updated Thread Director, and more.
Intel Arrow Lake-S brings five SKUs and new Z890 motherboards
In case you missed the previous announcement, Intel has a total of five SKUs, ranging from the flagship 24-core Core Ultra 9 285K, down to the Core Ultra 5 245K(F). The KF-series SKUs will lack the GPU. The TDP of the flagship SKU is at 125W PL1 to 250W MTP. As said, the flagship 24-core Core Ultra 9 285K (8P+16E, 36 MB L3 cache) is priced at USD $590. It is followed by the Core Ultra 7 265K (8P+12E, 30 MB L3 cache), priced at $390, and the Core Ultra 5 245K (6P+8E, 24 MB L3 cache), priced at $310. Intel also has two SKUs without the iGPU, the 265KF and 245KF, which are priced at $15 lower compared to their counterparts with GPU. You can find them both over at Amazon.com or over at Newegg.com.
In addition, Intel also launched the new Intel 800-series platform, which brings the new LGA 1851 socket for Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, and offers up to 48 PCIe lanes, 20 of those PCIe Gen 5, up to 10 USB 3.2 ports including five 20G, and plenty of USB 2.0 and SATA 3.0 ports. The platform brings dual-channel DDR5-6400 support with up to 48GB per DIMM and 192GB maximum capacity, ECC support, and support for UDIMM, CUDIMM, SODIMM, and CSODIMM modules. The new platform also brings up to two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Intel's Killer WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and 1Gb Ethernet, all from integrated I/O, while discrete I/O comes with up to four Thunderbolt 5 ports, Intel Killer WiFi 7 (5 Gig), Bluetooth 5.4, and 2.5Gb Ethernet.
Reviews are up and performance is all over the place
The reviews for the Intel Core Ultra 200S series are up from the usual suspects, and so far, performance is all over the place, with mixed gaming and application performance. Coupled with the requirement for a new socket LGA1851 motherboard, it might be a hard sell, at least until Intel gets the update Thread Director in line, or fixes these issues in some other way.
On the other hand, Intel's Arrow Lake-S brings improved memory support, mostly thanks to CU-DIMM, better integrated GPU, improved power consumption, lower cooling requirements, better overclocking, improved NPU (in case you actually need it), and a whole new platform with plenty of improvements.
Here are some of the reviews online where you can check out more performance details.
- Techpowerup.com
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review
Intel Core Ultra 7 265K Review
Intel Core Ultra 5 245K Review
- Hothardware.com
Core Ultra 9 285K And Ultra 5 245K Review: Intel Arrow Lake Tested
- Techspot.com
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review - Arrow Lake is a Mess... Possibly a Flop
- Tomshardware.com
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Review: Intel Throws a Lateral with Arrow Lake
- Forbes.com
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D: Which Should You Buy?
- Overclock3d.net
Intel Core Ultra 200S CPU Review
