China-exclusive Arrow Lake CPU poses for photos — Core Ultra 5 230F debuts in sleek, black box

Intel’s Core Ultra 5 230F has finally made its public debut, and the midrange CPU has been confirmed as exclusive to China by the publication MyDrivers.

When the CPU first leaked out last year, it was rumored to be exclusive to China, which MyDrivers has confirmed in an article showcasing the 230F and its packaging. On the surface, it’s almost identical to other Core Ultra 200S (Arrow Lake) chips except for having a different heatspreader like other budget Arrow Lake CPUs. Its black box packaging is similar to that used for the higher-end unlocked models and other Intel China-exclusive chips that came before it.

The Core Ultra 5 230F has a ten-core configuration: six P-cores and four E-cores. The P-cores start at 3.4 GHz and can boost up to 5 GHz, while the E-cores have a base frequency of 2.9 GHz and cap out at 4.4 GHz. Compared to the Core Ultra 5 225(F), the Core Ultra 5 230F notably has generally higher frequencies and slightly more cache, a specification that’s usually identical among same-generation CPUs with the same amount of cores. There’s no regular Core Ultra 5 230 with integrated graphics, just the Core Ultra 5 230F.

The different cache size compared to the international version isn’t all that unusual for Intel CPUs. The Core i7-14790F was also exclusive to China, came in a black box, and offered slightly more cache than the regular 14700(F). The Core i5-14490F was even more like the Core Ultra 5 230F, featuring higher clock speeds and more cache than the Core i5-14400F. These 14th Gen China exclusives also did not have a non-F model.

After the Core Ultra 5 230F was revealed before its official release, speculation arose over what specific die the China-exclusive CPU would use. According to the Arrow Lake documentation, Intel has a midrange Arrow Lake-S die with six P-cores and eight E-cores on the A0 stepping and an Arrow Lake-H die with the exact core count but on the A1 stepping. Hardware sleuth Jaykihn claimed the Core Ultra 5 230F would use the A0 chip, while HXL, another prominent leaker, speculated it was based on the A1 variant.

However, the official product page of the Core Ultra 5 230F seems to state that it uses the A0 die conclusively. That means the two have no real hardware difference, as both chips use the same die. The different specifications are due to Intel’s manual alteration of clock speeds and cache sizes.

It is unclear whether that will affect performance. Geekbench 6 results for the Core i7-14790F indicated that the Chinese model wasn’t any faster than the regular Core i7-14700(F) in either multi-threaded or single-threaded performance. However, it might be a different story in gaming, especially as games love cache, and even just a few megabytes extra could make a difference.