Intel has seemingly updated its Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop CPU performance slides to target creators rather than gamers. Arrow Lake-S Refresh should still offer good value for gamers, I would imagine, but core-heavy tasks will see the biggest uplifts.
According to these new slides, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is up to 85% faster than AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X in creator workloads such as Blender. For reference, these chips were tied in gaming, delivering an identical 37-game geomean. Intel also claims the same 85% uplift in creator tasks for the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, which is an impressive show for a CPU that is at best 4% faster in gaming, according to official tests. Understandably, this won’t be the case on all apps, but those that can take full advantage of high-core CPUs should feel the difference.
With hours ahead of launch, Team Blue seems to have shifted focus towards the true strengths of Arrow Lake-S Refresh, i.e. multi-threading. With up to 24 cores under its cap, the Core Ultra 200S Plus should be perfect for content creation, or any high-threaded tasks for that matter, including those mixed-use loads where the efficient cores tackle background apps.
While these refreshed CPUs are unlikely to pose a threat to AMD’s X3D chips, they are also much cheaper. At $199, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will slot against AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X, which can currently be found at around $180, while the $299 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus will go against the Ryzen 7 9700X, available at $300. For that price, you get 18 cores split into a 6P+12E core design on the 250K Plus and 24 cores in an 8P+16E layout on the 270K Plus. Both feature an extra four E-core cluster compared to their predecessors, the 245K and 265K.
On top of that, you get a slight boost to frequency plus other architectural enhancements such as lower latency and faster memory support. According to the company’s official slides, the Core Ultra 250K Plus and 270K Plus deliver 13% and 15% higher average gaming performance than their predecessors, respectively. This reaches up to 39% in favourable games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider. In other words, they should offer a measurable uplift for those upgrading from an older Arrow Lake chip.
The Core Ultra 200S Plus lineup is set to hit retail on March 26, 2026, but reviews should start popping out anytime now. This will give users enough time to find out if the upgrade is worth the cost.
