Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake Refresh processors are starting to appear on the usual benchmarking databases, giving us solid hints at the performance we can expect. In today’s spotlight, we have the Core Ultra 7 365K, which is a 20-core affair from the Blue Team, featuring an 8-P-core plus 12-E-core layout.
Though Intel Arrow Lake Refresh chips are said to offer a slight boost in performance over their Core Ultra 200 siblings, this early benchmark shows another story. According to these Geekbench 6 results, the Core Ultra 7 365K received 2,140 single-core points and 19,744 multi-core points. Both of these scores are weaker compared to its predecessor, the Core Ultra 7 265K, which managed to pull ahead by 5.7% in multi-core and a whopping 41.6% in single-core tests. Note, however, that Geekbench isn’t the most accurate test out there.
Furthermore, while previous rumours talked about a potential boost to Arrow Lake Refresh’s frequency, Geekbench reports the opposite. Where the Core Ultra 7 265K boosts up to 5.5GHz, Geekbench indicates that the refreshed chip goes backwards, boosting only up to 5.4GHz. If this was a completely new generation, it wouldn’t be an issue, as any slight IPC gains would counteract the frequency decrease, but since Arrow Lake Refresh isn’t expected to offer any substantial changes, we wonder why the frequency has been lowered. The only logical explanation is that this CPU is an engineering sample that is not fully unlocked.
Arrow Lake Refresh is also said to boast a better NPU (Neural Processing Unit) alongside improved out-of-the-box software tuning tailored for gaming and productivity, but those won’t be visible in Geekbench’s results. In other words, we may still see a positive performance boost on specific applications when and if these CPUs release, just don’t keep your hopes high.
The good news is that these upcoming Core Ultra 300 processors will be compatible with existing LGA1851 motherboards, as confirmed by today’s Core Ultra 7 365K working on an MSI Pro Z890-A Wi-Fi. Thus, even if performance doesn’t improve much, those rocking an entry or mid-range Intel platform should at least have a new high-end option to upgrade towards. Understandably, the best option would be to wait for Nova Lake, but sometimes you don’t have a choice.
Though Intel hasn’t yet announced its Arrow Lake Refresh lineup, if it were to ever release, it will likely be this year since Nova Lake is expected in 2026. If the true performance of these chips is as shown by today’s benchmark, Intel may cancel the lineup altogether as it would make little sense against older, cheaper and faster CPUs.
