Intel's Core Ultra 7 265K and 265KF CPUs Dip Below $250

[Tyler-98-W68]

Still trying to figure out all the hate for AL. I have both intel and AMD systems, not a fan of either side. I stumbled upon AL for a good deal locally (Core Ultra 5 225) and decided to build a system around it. I don't really play many demanding games, but I do game at 4k so the magical x3d chips ( I have a 7800x3d and a minisforum 7945hx3d) don't really have any benefit for my use case.
I do play BeamNG drive(very multithreaded). And my current 14900k system does just fine but I can bring it to its knees cpu wise with lots of cars spawned.
When I fired up the 225 10 Core 10 thread AL cpu, I found it matching the performance of my 14900k. Thoroughly impressed I went out and got a 285k, I'm sure my use case and generational performance is an outlier but AL isnt all bad and if I just went by what people said online I should never touch it.

One thing you can't deny is the single thread performance went way up with AR, and I haven't seen a performance regression vs my 14900k, but I see a lot cooler temps and lower power usage

The most recent price drops suck since I'm already invested but it is what it is.

Amd fans are quick to point out intel always having a dead socket and no upgrade path, If I do manage to keep the systems I build for any period of time, I'm changing the MB out anyways. If im upgrading im not half assing it.

 

[Nostras]

The 7800X3D and 265K(F) are very similarly priced, so the question really boils down to productivity vs gaming performance.
Oh how the turntables...

 

[john_]

Let's see. I could bought something like that, even when it is over 25 years from the last time I bought a new Intel desktop processor. The last desktop Intel CPU that I used, the i5 4460, was a gift. So, if I wanted to build a PC for everyday usage that could also be used occasionally to run heavy applications, the Core Ultra 7 265K at £234.04 would be very interesting. For an all around usage including gaming, I guess the KF could also be a very nice buy. Of course I would had to accept that this system wouldn't have any upgrade path and if, for any reason at some point, wasn't covering my needs, I would need to sell it and move to another platform. The only alternatives I can see is the Ryzen 9 5950X at 240 euros, but on the older AM4 platform, again without an upgrade path and the Ryzen 9 7900 at 272 euros. So in the end it would be 265K vs 7900. If I was focusing on gaming, again the 265X would be very interesting, because the 7800X3D is at 350 euros here and the 9800X3D at 478 euros.
.....or I could say "F it" and go with a 8400F at 85 euros!

tldr Even for someone who is buying -for over 25 years- AMD CPUs, these prices look interesting.

PS Prices in Greece 265KF 300 euros, 265K 320 (no change the last weeks)

 

[JustBenching]

280eur in Poland, 9700x is 290eur. still not enough of a price drop, given how much better 9700x is in terms of power efficiency and platform support.

I think you are confusing efficient with slow. The 9700x is slow, not efficient. Yes the 265k can pull twice the power of the 9700x if left unchecked, but it does that in workloads that is 80% faster (cbr, blender, corona, vray etc.). It goes without saying that limited to the same power the 265k still runs laps around the 9700x in performance.

Zen 2 (3000) when they went from 4core CCX to 8core CCX - 5000,7000,9000 on 8core CCX - Zen 6 on 12 core CCX?

Thats not more cores though. If anything zen 3 gave you less cores since the 6 core part launched at 299 vs 199 zen 2, and the 8core part launches at 449 vs 299. So yea, amd offered less cores with zen 3,lol.

 

[phanbuey]

I think you are confusing efficient with slow. The 9700x is slow, not efficient. Yes the 265k can pull twice the power of the 9700x if left unchecked, but it does that in workloads that is 80% faster (cbr, blender, corona, vray etc.). It goes without saying that limited to the same power the 265k still runs laps around the 9700x in performance.


Thats not more cores though. If anything zen 3 gave you less cores since the 6 core part launched at 299 vs 199 zen 2, and the 8core part launches at 449 vs 299. So yea, amd offered less cores with zen 3,lol.

Zen 2 3700x -- from the 2000 series to the 3000 series you got the CCX increase.

Zen 3 (5000) was a price gouge.

 

[JustBenching]

Zen 2 3700x -- from the 2000 series to the 3000 series you got the CCX increase.

Zen 3 (5000) was a price gouge.

The 3700x is still 4c per ccx. But it doesnt really matter anyways here, the total core count is the same. Amd hasnt increased core counts since 2017. They have actually decreased them with zen 3 price hikes

 

[john_]

Perhaps 9600X at $180, but I mean, $60 for more than 3x the cores and cheaper mobos meaning it's more like $30 more for the ARL chip...

Let's not do this mistake in a forum like TPU. Not all cores are the same in Arrow Lake. Having 12 E cores is important for productivity, but it's a fact that 12 cores are E cores not P cores. If the 265 had simply 20 cores, 20 P cores, it would have been a no brainer for productivity, gaming, everything. Assuming it wouldn't explode trying to run 20 P cores at 5.5GHz.

The advent of gaming performance charts/results generated with an RTX 5090 really throws off people's understanding of the actual relative performance with the GPUs they have I think. Besides the whole general ignoring of "application performance" charts.

That was happening for years before the X3D parts. AMD was the one offering more cores, REAL cores and at high efficiency, Intel was hitting 300W at 6GHz, losing in everything but gaming and everyone was saying "Yes, yes but Intel is the best in gaming. AMD slow". Now that X3D chips are here and win hands down in gaming offering also efficiency, narrative changes to "You need a 5090 and a 240Hz monitor, while limiting yourself to 1080p".

 

[dgianstefani]

Let's not do this mistake in a forum like TPU. Not all cores are the same in Arrow Lake. Having 12 E cores is important for productivity, but it's a fact that 12 cores are E cores not P cores. If the 265 had simply 20 cores, 20 P cores, it would have been a no brainer for productivity, gaming, everything. Assuming it wouldn't explode trying to run 20 P cores at 5.5GHz.

Nitpicking, 8 P cores from ARL are equivalent performance to 8 Cores from 9700X. You get 12 Skylake Equivalent cores on top of that, for $50 savings. Hence 9900X and 265K trading blows in both gaming and workstation, despite 265K actual competition being the more expensive 9700X.

That was happening for years before the X3D parts. AMD was the one offering more cores, REAL cores and at high efficiency, Intel was hitting 300W at 6GHz, losing in everything but gaming and everyone was saying "Yes, yes but Intel is the best in gaming. AMD slow". Now that X3D chips are here and win hands down in gaming offering also efficiency, narrative changes to "You need a 5090 and a 240Hz monitor, while limiting yourself to 1080p".

More half truths.

Intel was not losing in everything but gaming, it was winning in everything but efficiency at full load, where 14900K is still faster than everything besides 9950X, and released earlier, on a more than two year old architecture that was a tweak of a three year old architecture, all based on 10 nm. ARL is essentially same perf, slightly worse gaming due to not being monolithic, but fixed the efficiency under load. But you could always buy the non K parts for efficiency much closer to Zen competition, with 5/10% lower peak MT perf, but the same ST perf. Besides the brief period where Zen 3 competed against Rocket Lake and gained the gaming crown for less than a year, against a last minute backport to 14 from 10nm, and a sidegrade to Comet Lake. Alder Lake destroyed Zen 3 in everything, and AMD had to release the 5800X3D to remain competitive at gaming at least, but 5950X was slower in games, so there wasn't a "no compromise" chip until the 9950X3D, a $700+ CPU that's been available less than a year and still has scheduling issues in some games, requiring per game optimisation through software, besides low load efficiency still being worse than Alder Lake due to the IO/IF issue and chiplets, that won't be fixed till Zen 6 with new packaging. The X3D parts were also worse than non X3D parts at non gaming till Zen 5.

It wasn't until Zen 3 X3D that AMD had a clear win in gaming vs Rocket Lake and Comet Lake, a literal Skylake architecture that went on for five years with competitive performance, but that was matched by Raptor Lake, which had much greater application perf, a no compromise chip besides power draw. Then AM5 released at a very high price, where it was win some lose some with Zen 4 vs Raptor, before winning in general with Zen 5 (besides values% for money) besides fact that price wise, the competition for 265K is 9700X, not 9900X, which is the competition performance wise.

 

[JustBenching]

REAL cores and at high efficiency, Intel was hitting 300W at 6GHz, losing in everything but gaming and everyone was saying

Amd chips were never really more efficient unless you were comparing a locked power amd part to an unlocked power intel part.

"Yes, yes but Intel is the best in gaming. AMD slow". Now that X3D chips are here and win hands down in gaming offering also efficiency, narrative changes to "You need a 5090 and a 240Hz monitor, while limiting yourself to 1080p".

And we were making fun of these people that recommended Intel (eg. 7700k) even though they might be faster in gaming. Now the same people that were laughing at intel's 4core parts are recommending x3ds, lol

 

[Tek-Check]

Nothing is confirmed till they are on shelves, but it seems to be the case refresh is coming from consistent leaks etc. I mean, ARL now and ARL at launch are two different things already both pricing and performance wise, so there's that.

How different? Are there any fresh re-reviews?
Edit: I found DerBauer - essentially, Intel extended their warranty to overclocking profile '200S Boost' with 8000 MT/s memory. In a small selection of games, this brings ~12% boost for 285K, which is nice. Ryzen X3D is still ~20% faster in a small selection of games.

 

[JustBenching]

Nitpicking, 8 P cores from ARL are equivalent performance to 8 Cores from 9700X. You get 12 Skylake Equivalent cores on top of that, for $50 savings. Hence 9900X and 265K trading blows in both gaming and workstation, despite 265K actual competition being the more expensive 9700X.

More half truths.

Intel was not losing in everything but gaming, it was winning in everything but multi threaded efficiency at full load. Besides the brief period where Zen 3 competed against Rocket Lake and gained the gaming crown for less than a year, against a last minute backport to 14 from 10nm, and a sidegrade to Comet Lake. Alder Lake destroyed Zen 3 in everything, and AMD had to release the 5800X3D to remain competitive at gaming at least, but 5950X was slower in games, so there wasn't a no compromise chip until the 9950X3D.

It wasn't until Zen 3 X3D that AMD had a clear win in gaming, that was matched by Raptor Lake. Then AM5 released at a very high price, where it was win some lose some with Zen 4 vs Raptor, before winning in general with Zen 5 (besides values% for money) besides fact that price wise, the competition for 265K is 9700X, not 9900X, which is the competition performance wise.

All this gaming talk has my head spinning tbf. Im on a 4 year old 12900k now and the 4090 is a major bottleneck - and yet it's the 2nd fastest GPU on the planet. There are specific scenarios (like MSFS) where the 9800x 3d did in fact fly past the 12900k (around twice the framerate, lol), but they are very far in between (and you still need a GPU from the upper shelf to enable) - the average person that just plays every AAA games will see 0 difference between a 7600x and a 9800x 3d (im using both amd chips to avoid people getting into an amd vs intel argument here).

What arrowlake has done in terms of the mixed workload power draw is absolutely insane. Most of these kinda mixed workloads (gaming included btw) have the 285k being as fast or faster than the 9950x while consuming a truckload less power. Even in gaming the 9950x ends up consuming somewhere between 35 and 100% extra power. Check the following review that has a variety of workloads and their power draw.

Spoiler

 

[dismuter]

I consider Rocket Lake, Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, Raptor lake refresh and Arrow Lake all part of the same next gen architecture after Skylake. Intel has had almost five years. They can have five more but I don’t know if it will help.

Even though Rocket Lake used the backported Cypress Cove, there's a huge performance gap with Alder Lake. You can't really put the 10nm/Intel 7 CPUs in the same basket as that 14nm+++ chip.

 

[dgianstefani]

How different? Are there any fresh re-reviews?

What do you think happens to price/perf charts when a $400 chip becomes a $240 chip, after five or so microcode and firmware updates increasing performance, including a one click warranty covered 200S boost that sets RAM to 8000 MT (reviewed at 6000 MT to be fair to AMD) and internal clocks relevant to latency (the cause of gaming issues) to a much more appropriate x42 from the low 30s?

You get something that was compared against 9900X on release, where it won some, lost some, to being $40-60 cheaper than a 9700X, and barely 3% slower in gaming (with a 4090 at 720p), but about 30% faster in applications, with a cheaper overall platform that doesn't need a dual chipset solution to offer good connectivity.

 

[john_]

This is not a problem. Say, you build a PC. Three years into using it it still can do stuff. Six years into it? Whatever CPU they invented for this platform will be inferior to the current gen offerings of a similar price.

Not true with AM4. I bought an X470 motherboard for 90 euros in August of 2020(well two X470s, but let's focus on one of them). So the socket was already 4 years old, like AM5 today. I started with a cheepo Athlon 3000G for about 45 euros. Sold that, gone to a second hand 2600X for about 50 euros from a friend. When the R5 5500 droped at 90 euros, I bought that one. When things changed and I wanted a good integrated GPU, I bought a 4600G that was selling for 80 euros and replaced that 5500. If I wanted to go the opposite direction, I could have replaced that 5500 with a 5950X or a 5800X3D. My only "problem" would have being the "limitation" of PCIe 3.0 instread of being with a board supporting PCIe 4.0 or 5.0. So, about 9 years after the introduction of AM4 and almost 5 years after I bought it, the platform could still offer me the option to triple my performance in productivity or increase to a completely different level the gaming performance of my platform. Especially in that last case, the money saved could give me the option to also upgrade my GPU.
Someone buying an AM5 today, to use from day one an 9800X3D or an 9950X(3D or not) can enjoy another upgrade circle that will offer them a significant uplift in performance, thought better architecture or increased number of cores. Someone using a more middle class option, like a 7600X or a 7700X, can double or more the performance of their system by just going for a higher end CPU in 4-5 years for probably half of the cost of changing platform. Or, if there is a use for a second system, buy an APU and keep using that AM5 system with that new APU for even more years.

 

[dgianstefani]

The 7800X3D and 265K(F) are very similarly priced, so the question really boils down to productivity vs gaming performance.
Oh how the turntables...

8c/16t 7800X3D is $360 with more expensive motherboards, 20c/20t 265KF is $230. Could you explain to us how that is similarly priced?

 

[Tyler-98-W68]

Let's not do this mistake in a forum like TPU. Not all cores are the same in Arrow Lake. Having 12 E cores is important for productivity, but it's a fact that 12 cores are E cores not P cores. If the 265 had simply 20 cores, 20 P cores, it would have been a no brainer for productivity, gaming, everything. Assuming it wouldn't explode trying to run 20 P cores at 5.5GHz.


That was happening for years before the X3D parts. AMD was the one offering more cores, REAL cores and at high efficiency, Intel was hitting 300W at 6GHz, losing in everything but gaming and everyone was saying "Yes, yes but Intel is the best in gaming. AMD slow". Now that X3D chips are here and win hands down in gaming offering also efficiency, narrative changes to "You need a 5090 and a 240Hz monitor, while limiting yourself to 1080p".

You really like to throw shade at the E-Cores hey? Its funny how the Skymont E-Cores in Arrow Lake were a big step up in performance vs the Gracemont Cores in Alder lake and raptor lake.

They aren't as weak as you might think they are.

 

[john_]

Nitpicking, 8 P cores from ARL are equivalent performance to 8 Cores from 9700X. You get 12 Skylake Equivalent cores on top of that, for $50 savings. Hence 9900X and 265K trading blows in both gaming and workstation, despite 265K actual competition being the more expensive 9700X.

Good cores, but old cores

Intel was not losing in everything but gaming, it was winning in everything but efficiency at full load, where 14900K is still faster than everything besides 9950X, released two years earlier.

Intel was losing in everything but gaming and when 5000 series was released from AMD it had competition in gaming also, that's why it starting pumping those watts like there was no tomorrow. Intel didn't gone at 300W power consumption, because it was marketing it's CPUs as room heaters too. It gone at 300W because AMD was too close in gaming and in some occasions was winning. Intel managed to turn the tables with 12th gen and that lasted until the 5800 X3D. After 5800X3D Intel lost the gaming crown, so now we need a 5090 and a 1080p 240Hz monitor to see the difference in gaming.

 

[JustBenching]

almost 5 years after I bought it, the platform could still offer me the option to triple my performance in productivity or increase to a completely different level the gaming performance of my platform. Especially in that last case, the money saved could give me the option to also upgrade my GPU.

Uhm, the only reason it gave you the option to triple your performance is because you have low end CPUs. Someone that bought an i3 12100 back in 2021 can also more than triple his performance.

 

[dismuter]

the platform could still offer me the option to triple my performance in productivity or increase to a completely different level the gaming performance of my platform.

Yes but you went with an Athlon 3000G at first, which was the lowest of the lowest.
Someone who picked a Celeron G6900 (socket 1700) in early 2022, can upgrade to a 14600K for less than $100 in 2 years (which would then be 5 years later) and make an even greater leap in performance than you did. And that's also not the highest end for that platform that they could upgrade to.
The upgradability of the platform is mostly relevant if you initially picked the high end, because that's when you could face a dead-end.

 

[dgianstefani]

Good cores, but old cores
View attachment 404519

Intel was losing in everything but gaming and when 5000 series was released from AMD it had competition in gaming also, that's why it starting pumping those watts like there was no tomorrow. Intel didn't gone at 300W power consumption, because it was marketing it's CPUs as room heaters too. It gone at 300W because AMD was too close in gaming and in some occasions was winning. Intel managed to turn the tables with 12th gen and that lasted until the 5800 X3D. After 5800X3D Intel lost the gaming crown, so now we need a 5090 and a 1080p 240Hz monitor to see the difference in gaming.

Don't make me pull up the charts.

You really like to throw shade at the E-Cores hey? Its funny how the Skymont E-Cores in Arrow Lake were a big step up in performance vs the Gracemont Cores in Alder lake and raptor lake.

They aren't as weak as you might think they are.

ARL E cores are about as strong as Raptor Lake P cores, but clocked lower. Wild stuff considering Nova lake is bringing 16p+32e, all next gen cores.

 

[Tek-Check]

Still trying to figure out all the hate for AL

There is no hate. There is simply no enthusiasm about it, as the platform did not start well. Sometimes you have only one shot to impress the public. It's a fast moving industry. Perhaps they should have released it at CES, giving some time to tune chips better, iron out the interconnect latency and other quirks. In last 15 years, I have had three different i7s, and enjoyed it. I switched to Zen3, after power on Rocket Lake went out of control.

 

[JustBenching]

Intel was losing in everything but gaming and when 5000 series was released from AMD it had competition in gaming also, that's why it starting pumping those watts like there was no tomorrow. Intel didn't gone at 300W power consumption, because it was marketing it's CPUs as room heaters too. It gone at 300W because AMD was too close in gaming and in some occasions was winning. Intel managed to turn the tables with 12th gen and that lasted until the 5800 X3D. After 5800X3D Intel lost the gaming crown, so now we need a 5090 and a 1080p 240Hz monitor to see the difference in gaming.

You are making stuff up. Neither the 8700k, 9900k, 10900k or 11900k were pulling 300w. TPUs review has the 10900k pulling 246w running cinebench for whole SYSTEM power and from the wall. The 9900k was at 198 for the whole system. What 300w are you talking about? Why can't we stick with reality...

 

[john_]

You really like to throw shade at the E-Cores hey? Its funny how the Skymont E-Cores in Arrow Lake were a big step up in performance vs the Gracemont Cores in Alder lake and raptor lake.

They aren't as weak as you might think they are.

My apologies for throwing shade on those wonderful E cores.
It's still a hybrid design. The positive in that design is having more cores and that's very good for productivity and parallel tasks. The bad thing is that this is a hybrid design meaning more than half of those cores are not performing as the top performing cores. In fact they perform much slower. It's like -best case scenario- trying to run an application and 2/3rds of your system cores are already occupied by another application running in the background.

 

[dgianstefani]

There is no hate. There is simply no enthusiasm about it, as the platform did not start well. Sometimes you have only one shot to impress the public. It's a fast moving industry. Perhaps they should have released it at CES, giving some time to tune chips better, iron out the interconnect latency and other quirks. In last 15 years, I have had three different i7s, and enjoyed it. I switched to Zen3, after power on Rocket Lake went out of control.

Public = Vocal minority of DIY enthusiasts watching YouTube, and looking at gaming perf charts at 720p.

Reality = Tens of millions of CPUs sold in prebuilts, vast majority of which are Intel. And for gaming, phones and consoles dominate. Very, very few (relatively), play on PC, and of those even fewer build their own rigs. Easy to forget that.

But even for DIY, besides 285K, or for top end X3D+5080/5090 builds, ARL is looking very competitive.

 

[JustBenching]

Amd fans are quick to point out intel always having a dead socket and no upgrade path, If I do manage to keep the systems I build for any period of time, I'm changing the MB out anyways. If im upgrading im not half assing it.

That I disagree with, mobo compatibility is great. Not the way amd does it - since they are overcharging you for the cpu so you might as well buy a new mobo anyways - but in general if my z690 unify x would support a 285k id be getting one.