Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU-Z and Blender benchmarks underwhelm, but questions remain

The big picture: Intel's Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200K desktop CPUs begin shipping next week, and third-party benchmark results have started appearing. Intel's unveiling earlier this month tempered expectations regarding performance gains compared to 14th-gen Raptor Lake and AMD Zen 5 Ryzen 9000. Although results in the wild aren't shocking, a full picture has yet to emerge.

The flagship of Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake desktop lineup has made its benchmarking debut on the CPU-Z and Blender databases. Although a full analysis must wait until reviews from TechSpot and other sites become available, this early sneak peek aligns with the atmosphere from Intel's announcement presentation from earlier this month.

Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K posted a single-thread CPU-Z score of 909 when clocked at 5.4GHz and 889 at 5.3GHz. The higher score falls slightly below the processor's direct predecessor, the Core i9-14900K. Meanwhile, the lower score also struggles against the older 13900K.

Memory is likely one of the main factors dragging the results down. Intel suggested a base memory speed of DDR5-6400 and a sweet spot of DDR5-8000 for Arrow Lake. However, the CPU-Z benchmark units used 5600 and 4800 RAM in dual 16GB configurations.

Thermal throttling is also apparent, as the CPU reached 101 degrees Celsius in the 909-score test. Meanwhile, the multi-thread scores of 18,964 and 18,099 put the 285K soundly above the competition, supporting Intel's claims of a hefty multi-threaded performance boost.

The Blender results offer less data but show a notable ranking between recent flagship consumer processors. A media score of 566.88 puts the 285K well ahead of the 14900K but far below AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X. Another Arrow Lake chip, the Core Ultra 7 265K, also appears here. Its 471.21 score edging just above the Ryzen 9 9900X.

When Intel unveiled the desktop Arrow Lake chips, the company never promised uniform performance gains over Raptor Lake or AMD Zen 5. The new generation's real uplifts are supposedly in power efficiency and productivity. Time will tell if the claims bear out in our full review, but carrying price tags similar to Raptor Lake certainly won't help.

Intel's Arrow Lake processors start shipping on October 24, starting at $294 for the Core Ultra 5 245KF. The 285K will retail for $589. The company also confirmed that Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200H and 200HX will come to high-end laptops in early 2025.