Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

[Carillon]

@W1zzard

What do the three separate colorings on the power charts mean? They all say stock. I didn’t see a note anywhere referencing it, at least on that page.

Different SKUs, they're there in all tests

 

[Hecate91]

And they said that Zen5 was a disappointment.

Seems like Intel isn't getting the same general criticism that Zen5 did, everyone hyped up Arrow Lake yet its slower in gaming.

 

[R0H1T]

Intel Ultra -5% vs Zen5%

This is such a joke, whoever started this should be banned from the internet permanently & its cult members banished forever from PCMR

Pricing of both remains the main issue for 600 usd they kinda suck

That's because AM4 still exists!

 

[oxrufiioxo]

No, it didn't. Zen 5 is a significant improvement over Zen 4, but you wouldn't know it if you only considered gaming. What's clear is that the memory wall is making scaling ever more difficult.

While both this and the 9950X can be good for specific task, for the most part neither is bringing anything special over what we've had at much lower prices over the last year.

Pricing of both remains the main issue for 600 usd they kinda suck

 

[chrcoluk]

Seems a similar story to the ultra 7 chip, will copy and paste my reply from there, I expect though most will see this as a dud given the gaming performance.

My take is as expected HT is no loss on multi threaded productivity. E-cores have taken over that well enough.
Power efficiency has gone in a positive direction.
However there is some performance regressions compared to raptor lake, seemingly on emulators and gaming where its most visible. Curious if this needs scheduling improvements or if will just be a long term problem with the chip, which is something I thought might be an issue for these chips as its a shift of thread design.

Hopefully one day W1zzard or owners can do some playing with CPU affinity to see if performance is recoverable.

Given where the improvements are and my take on the Z890 motherboards, I dont see my self buying one of these, although I remain interested if Bartlett can pull out a 12 p-core chip for the Z690/Z790.

 

[Ruru]

Seems like Intel isn't getting the same general criticism that Zen5 did, everyone hyped up Arrow Lake yet its slower in gaming.

The problem with some Zen5 SKUs were that they were tuned for low consumption, the arch itself isn't bad at all.

I also wondered all that hype for Arrowlake without any reliable information, leaks or anything. I guess improving from those self-destructive 13/14th gen was the most important thing to have.

 

[AnotherReader]

While both this and the 9950X can be good for specific task, for the most part neither is bringing anything special over what we've had at much lower prices over the last year.

Pricing of both remains the main issue for 600 usd they kinda suck

Yes, pricing for both new CPU lineups is higher than warranted. @W1zzard Do you plan to review only the E cores like you did for the 12900K?

 

[W1zzard]

@W1zzard

What do the three separate colorings on the power charts mean? They all say stock. I didn’t see a note anywhere referencing it, at least on that page.

Different CPU model 4 6 8 .. I'll change to just highlight the tested one

 

[rv8000]

Different SKUs, they're there in all tests

Oof, I see it now. The naming scheme made me overlook that, so use to seeing 14900, 14700 etc…

 

[praescepter]

Wow... we know from Intel, that it wont threaten the 7800X3D, but holy shit... this is bad.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

The problem with some Zen5 SKUs were that they were tuned for low consumption, the arch itself isn't bad at all.

I also wondered all that hype for Arrowlake without any reliable information, leaks or anything. I guess improving from those self-destructive 13/14th gen was the most important thing to have.

Intel showed it losing to both 7950X3D and 14900k in their 31 game benchmark, Amd on the otherhand came out with pie in the sky benchmark graphs that didn't make any sense.

I think how both cpus were presented made a big difference i already knew this would lose to the 14900k just by how much was the question so it just came down to how it did in applications overall.

Amd on the other hand really fumbled it's launch and released vs Zen4 products that were substantially better value.

Both seem half baked....

 

[AnotherReader]

Different CPU model 4 6 8 .. I'll change to just highlight the tested one

I prefer your current scheme. It's easily decipherable and better for comparing the new CPU SKUs.

 

[Enterprise24]

14900K to 285K is kinda like FX 8150 to x6 1100T. Less threads, lower power consumption, similar performance.

 

[FreezingPC]

OH yeah, this is happening!

 

[pavle]

Curious they have made 9 285K L2 Cache performance lower than L3 when in all previous CPU's from both manufacturers L2 is higher and 2x higher as in core_ultra_9_285k. I believe this is the main reason it's so slow.
Also for a 3nm chip to have only halved power consumption compared to i9 14900 (10nm) shows the architecture isn't mature, should be one third the power of the 14900k...

 

[darkangel0504]

wow, what a disaster

 

[R0H1T]

14900K to 285K is kinda like FX 8150 to x6 1100T. Less threads, lower power consumption, similar performance.

But you could unlock the 960T to 1100t IIRC ~ free cores

Wow... we know from Intel, that it wont threaten the 7800X3D, but holy shit... this is bad.

It's fine, gaming at the ultra high end is mostly about this ~

Spoiler

 

[kondamin]

Doesn't look bad for the benchmarks I care about just like zen 5 looked good to me.

 

[Squared]

I don't understand how running all platforms on DDR5-6000 is fair. Part of the benefit of a new platform is higher supported memory speed. Ryzen 9000 series uses the same memory controller as the 7000 series, so in that sense it's not a new platform.

When I experimented with running higher memory speeds than my Ryzen 1800X CPU supports, I experienced no issues during memory stress testing, but then when I actually used the system it would crash randomly. Therefore as a user, if I were buying a Ryzen 9000 series processor today, I would run it on DDR5 5600 memory. But if I were buying a new Core 200 series, I would run it on DDR5 6400. So seeing both at DDR5 6000 isn't as informative as I would like.

 

[R0H1T]

Because it's not fair to compare a rig with $100 memory with another having $200 or more, also this is probably the highest mem speeds validated(?) by Intel. Which means anything above is not guaranteed either. Ok looks like ARL does go slightly higher ~

Spoiler

Maximum Memory Speed 6400 MHz

 

[evernessince]

I was hoping this would actually beat the 9000 series in Multi-thread and efficiency so I could snag one for an encoding rig but unfortunately it didn't live up to Intel's claims.

I know improved energy efficiency was the main focus here, but it came at too much of a cost.

Well plus you have to consider the efficiency improved relative to a processor that's pushed way too far out of the box.

When you power limit the 14900K, efficiency improves significantly. At 95w the 14900K is both more efficient and faster in gaming workloads.

We have to see how well this CPU responds to power limiting in order to determine whether it's truly more efficient or if Intel just tuned it to be more efficient out of the box.

 

[theglaze]

9 285K L2 Cache performance lower than L3

Interesting, can you elaborate?

[Edit] nvm

14900K

285K

From TH review:

 

[trparky]

wow, what a disaster
View attachment 368752

Good God, that's a bloodbath!

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Arrow Lake was supposed to big win too, and it can't even beat raptor lake in gaming, Intel is truly a joke at this point. I would say incoming stock price drop, but we all know our government will keep propping up this failed company because they have no alternatives. lol

Most people do not care about gaming. Gaming is not the point of computing. This is like saying axel grease isn't as good for jerking off as lube. It's technically correct, but one is an important activity and the other is just jacking off.

 

[pavle]

Interesting, can you elaborate? I cannot find explicit detail on cache 'speed' in the review.

I have read through PCGamesHardware article before this one and they have AIDA Cache and memory benchmark side-by-side with 14900K and Ryzen.