If various reports are anything to go by, Intel is about to expand its list of the best processors with the upcoming Arrow Lake very soon. As a result, benchmark leaks are almost a daily occurrence at this point. While the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K is mostly doing a good job against its AMD competitors, the non-K version failed to beat the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and the Intel Core 9 14900.
The Core Ultra 9 285 appeared in a Geekbench 6 test, first shared by Benchleaks, and the scores are nothing to write home about. The processor scored 3,081 points in the single-core test, which is fairly competitive, and a measly 14,150 points in the multi-core benchmark, which is disappointing. In fact, while the single-core test went better, both of these scores put it firmly behind many CPUs that we’d expect it to be able to beat.
[GB6 CPU] Unknown CPU
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285 (24C 24T)
Min/Max/Avg: 5461/5579/5560 MHz
Codename: Arrow Lake
CPUID: C0662 (GenuineIntel)
Single: 3081
Multi: 14150https://t.co/zPyFYuKEoH— Benchleaks (@BenchLeaks) September 30, 2024
For starters, the Ryzen 7 9700X. As noted by TechPowerUp, the recent AMD CPU scored 3,624 points and 19,381 points in single-core and multi-core, respectively. Meanwhile, the last-gen Core i9-14900K scored 3,083 points and 20,749 points on average. I checked the Core i9-14900 for good measure and found Geekbench 6 scores of 2,910 and 17,509 in single- and multi-core, which is a lot lower than the K CPU, but still higher than the upcoming Arrow Lake chip.
The CPU was paired with an Asus Z890-P motherboard and was able to achieve a maximum frequency of 5.5GHz. However, the base clock speed was fairly low, sitting at a mere 2.5GHz. The system also only had 8GB of DDR5-5500 RAM — an unexpected configuration for a high-end chip that could’ve had something to do with these poor results.
Some reports claim that the Core Ultra 9 285 might be locked to 65 watts. If that’s the case, that too would explain the benchmark scores when compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K, which achieved over 21,000 points in Geekbench. On the other hand, until recently, AMD’s Ryzen 7 9700X was also limited to a lower TDP.
So, is the Core Ultra 9 285 doomed? Not at all. It’s too early to judge based on a single benchmark. We might be dealing with an engineering sample; driver considerations might come into play; and the 8GB of memory isn’t ideal, either. We should hold off until these CPUs are out in the wild, which might not be long now, although the K parts are said to launch first. Leaks point to October 24.
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