Monday, September 15th 2025

Intel Core Ultra 3 205 Gets Early Review

Intel's cheapest processor for the Socket LGA1851 platform, the Core Ultra 3 205, got an early review from Korean tech publication BullsLab. The chip is based on the "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture, with a 4P+4E core configuration. This includes four "Lion Cove" P-cores, each with 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache, and one "Skymont" E-core cluster with 4 MB of L2 cache. The four P-cores and one E-core cluster share 15 MB of L3 cache. The P-cores boost up to 4.90 GHz, and the E-cores boost up to 4.20 GHz. The iGPU gets 2 Xe cores compared to 4 Xe cores on the higher models in the series; and you even get the 13 TOPS NPU found in other models. Cinebench R23 sees the Core Ultra 3 205 post significant performance gains over its predecessor, the Core i3-14100, in the multithreaded test, and reasonably good gains in the single-threaded test. It also posts significant 75% gains in 3DMark Time Spy iGPU performance tests.
Source: BullsLab (YouTube)
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12 Comments on Intel Core Ultra 3 205 Gets Early Review

#1
soulphie
Intel makes the best CPUs in the entire world for synthetic benchmarks
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#2
docnorth
Multithreaded performance doesn’t mean much, due to addition of e-cores. But single core performance combined with higher clocks looks promising for an entry level CPU. Pricing of course will also define its value, mostly bulk price for prebuilts imo.
Posted on Reply
#3
Squared
In mobile chips I hate that the low-end models get fewer Xe or RDNA cores, because they're more likely to go without a dGPU than the bigger iGPU models are. But for a desktop chip it's fine; most people won't need a better iGPU and those that do can add in a graphics card.
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#4
_roman_
Rename Party // 2nd Cpu this week from intel
Posted on Reply
#5
TheinsanegamerN
Intel is the best at making $50 CPUs that will end up retailing for $100+.
SquaredIn mobile chips I hate that the low-end models get fewer Xe or RDNA cores, because they're more likely to go without a dGPU than the bigger iGPU models are. But for a desktop chip it's fine; most people won't need a better iGPU and those that do can add in a graphics card.
Unless you have a PC without expansion slots or dont want to spend $250 on entry level garbage.

There should be at least one low end SKU with the big iGPU.
Posted on Reply
#6
Tyler-98-W68
When news of this cpu started coming out I took my ultra 5 225 and disabled 2 of the p cores to make it similar to a 205. Gaming performance was basically unchanged and it was still completely acceptable
Posted on Reply
#7
LastDudeALive
TheinsanegamerNIntel is the best at making $50 CPUs that will end up retailing for $100+.
Hey, even if it's $100, that's far better for the low-end DIY market than anything AMD provides. A 12100F and H610 mobo used to be the best combo for very low-budget builds. If there's sufficient supply of this and low-end mobos, it'll be good for that as well.
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#8
ValenOne
Core i3-14100 only has 4 P-Cores.

Cinebench R23 doesn't use 256-bit SIMD. chipsandcheese.com/p/cinebench-2024-reviewing-the-benchmark

[ICODE]Although SSE and AVX provide 128-bit and 256-bit vector support respectively, Cinebench 2024 makes little use of vector compute. Most AVX or SSE instructions operate on scalar values. The most common FP/vector math instructions are VMULSS (scalar FP32 multiply) and VADDSS (scalar FP32 add). About 6.8% of instructions do math on 128-bit vectors. [/ICODE][ICODE]256-bit vectors are nearly absent[/ICODE]
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#9
kondamin
TheinsanegamerNIntel is the best at making $50 CPUs that will end up retailing for $100+.

Unless you have a PC without expansion slots or dont want to spend $250 on entry level garbage.

There should be at least one low end SKU with the big iGPU.
The extra silicon and extra memory bandwidth needed is going to take it out of the low end as producing it becomes more expensive.
So they might as well stick it to a higher end sku.

Like say the amd ryzen ai 370
Posted on Reply
#10
Nathaaab
_roman_Rename Party // 2nd Cpu this week from intel
What's the renaming part here
Posted on Reply
#11
Tyler-98-W68
_roman_Rename Party // 2nd Cpu this week from intel
Whats existing 4p core 4 e core is this cpu renamed from. Hint, you don't have a clue its not a rename
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