Intel Core Ultra 5 245K

[lexluthermiester]

Too expensive, too slow, can't beat Zen3 in efficiency, zero guarantees of stability until a couple of years.
A disaster.

You actually read the review, right?

 

[GoldenX]

You actually read the review, right?

Yeah, and I'm not paying that for that performance. Let it sit in storage for a few weeks with no sales and let's see how low it goes.

 

[Kapone33]

Seems like owning a 12100F still counts as being an AMD fanboy when Intel releases the worst product since rocket lake.


First world country users forget most of the world has higher prices on top of the already terrible USA MSRP pricing. 2024 has been the worst year to purchase hardware in 3rd world countries like mine, to the point you can call owning an AM4 motherboard and investment by now.

You don't even have to go that far. Just look at the difference in pricing between the US vs Canada and Australia.

 

[SL2]

Also, is nobody commenting on the fact that essentially the baseline iGPU performance on Intel CPUs is now on parity with the AMD 8500G iGPU?

For most iGPU users, the existing Xe UHD / Ryzen iGPU was more than enough and probably will be, but Intel have pushed the baseline for themselves much further forward. OEMs / SIs will be happy in that sense - they can now claim 'gaming' capability without having to spend the pittance on a GT1030 or equivalent crap.

8500G is still only 4 CU tho, 8700G has 12 CU, and (most) 7000/9000 has 2. Lumping all current AM5 IGP's togeher into a single "existing" group doesn't really say much.

Anyway, I was surprised with Arrow, but I'm not sure I'd call it playable after looking at those numbers at 720 low. It depends on which game of course, especially age makes a difference.

What really surprised me before was the IGP performance of Lunar lake and its efficiency.

OEMs / SIs will be happy in that sense - they can now claim 'gaming' capability without having to spend the pittance on a GT1030 or equivalent crap.

Not so fast! I'm not sure it's that easy, people are going to keep on looking for popular GPU brands on the box, and I don't think a million benchmarks will change that..

 

[lexluthermiester]

Yeah, and I'm not paying that for that performance. Let it sit in storage for a few weeks with no sales and let's see how low it goes.

Then you're likely only gaming. Intel new arch is geared for more that just raw gaming performance.

 

[dirtyferret]

But wasn't the point of HT to get the best out of the core resources in terms of thread workload/scheduling....

there's a whole discussion on HT vs E-core here

E-cores still evolve. But is there a reason for it?

Let's pretend marketing, business and all that economy stuff are completely irrelevant. I'm about to ONLY talk engineering aspects of this phenomenon. From what I've gathered so far (and I might be totally wrong. Correct me if I am): • Hybrid structure cries for an impeccable prediction...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Kapone33]

Then you're likely only gaming. Intel new arch is geared for more that just raw gaming performance.

Then the Dual CCD X3D chjips make more sense. For 3 simple reasons.

1. Socket longevity (We just got more AM4 CPUs)
2. Power draw. X3d chips are exemplary at Power Draw.
3. RAM Costs. With X3D chips you don't need to buy expensive 8000 Mt/s DDR5 when 32GB DDR5 6000 30 are available for $129. Canadian.

I will add another one just because.

CPU performance. Just look at the specs and you will see 128MB of L3 Cache.

 

[Vincero]

8500G is still only 4 CU tho, 8700G has 12 CU, and (most) 7000/9000 has 2. Lumping all current AM5 IGP's togeher into a single "existing" group doesn't really say much.

To be clear I'm not lumping all the AM5 iGPU options together - I'm talking about the baseline 7000 series Ryzen CPUs and their comparative intel UHD like limited solution.
Obviously the performance spread between 7x00->8700G is very large.

Anyway, I was surprised with Arrow, but I'm not sure I'd call it playable after looking at those numbers at 720 low. It depends on which game of course, especially age makes a difference.

I wouldn't call it a practical solution for anything modern at all - 10 year old titles it will probably turn in a fair performance, and it (as shown in the review) is almost equal to the 8500G.

I don't think AMD need to match it going forward for normal desktop platforms (although I guess any product deficit to the competition is undesirable) and they've already shown the next APU range is going to be even more powerful.

What did surprise me before was the IGP performance of Lunar lake and its efficiency.

I'm guessing intel is segmenting the laptop and desktop products and economising where they can. Same as they did with Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake CPU/Xe implementations, etc., ironically still because they are struggling with production capability.

 

[Bet0n]

the E cores make up for the lack of HT. It's the intensive workload on the P cores which seems to be an issue.

On a side note, I've never seen a CPU do so well on Cinebench single and multi and so poorly in gaming as these Ultra CPUs. The two are not a direct correlation but usually if you do really well in Cinebench single and multi (as opposed to one or the other), you have much better gaming results and these Ultra CPU are top of the charts in Cinebench in both tests but pure mediocre in gaming.

I think these AL CPUs have two problems causing this "effect" (fast in easily parallelizable task / slower in games).
The memory latency is too high compared to any generation before. Probably because the IMC is not on the compute tile next to the cores but on the Soc tile which is obviously further away from the cores. Previous Intel CPUs were monolithic so they didn't have this problem.
Also the E-cores are slower to read/write the memory than the P-cores (slower+higher latency) so if there is a game in which an E-core handles a thread it will be slower. The Windows scheduler is still not perfect. We are talking about ~80 ns (P-core) vs ~120 ns (E-core), that's +50%.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Also, is nobody commenting on the fact that essentially the baseline iGPU performance on Intel CPUs is now on parity with the AMD 8500G iGPU?

For most iGPU users, the existing Xe UHD / Ryzen iGPU was more than enough and probably will be, but Intel have pushed the baseline for themselves much further forward. OEMs / SIs will be happy in that sense - they can now claim 'gaming' capability without having to spend the pittance on a GT1030 or equivalent crap.

OEMs do not typically sell many K-skus, instead they will be selling the baseline Core Ultra 5s and Ultra 3s which have at best half the Xe cores of these higher end K-skus. So no there will be no Office PC parity with the 8500G though matching the lowly 1030 in some games may be possible.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Then the Dual CCD X3D chjips make more sense. For 3 simple reasons.

1. Socket longevity (We just got more AM4 CPUs)
2. Power draw. X3d chips are exemplary at Power Draw.
3. RAM Costs. With X3D chips you don't need to buy expensive 8000 Mt/s DDR5 when 32GB DDR5 6000 30 are available for $129. Canadian.

I will add another one just because.

CPU performance. Just look at the specs and you will see 128MB of L3 Cache.

That's a fair statement and set of points. For many of the benchmarks, yes, the Ryzen's make more sense in that price bracket. However, the non-gaming performance paints a different picture. Intel was aiming for a more well rounded CPU and the review shows they hit the mark.

 

[THU31]

Nice efficiency (when not comparing to X3D), but gaming performance is all over the place. I wonder what the cause of that is. Could it be latency from the tile-based design?

Looking forward to in-depth testing of P-cores and E-cores.

As mentioned by the reviewer, hopefully this establishes a design foundation for the future, but it definitely doesn't seem like a platform worth buying at the moment.

 

[Vincero]

there's a whole discussion on HT vs E-core here

E-cores still evolve. But is there a reason for it?

Let's pretend marketing, business and all that economy stuff are completely irrelevant. I'm about to ONLY talk engineering aspects of this phenomenon. From what I've gathered so far (and I might be totally wrong. Correct me if I am): • Hybrid structure cries for an impeccable prediction...

www.techpowerup.com

Yep, I've seen that, but to quote the rest of my comment:

E cores can't make up for bad pipeline prediction misses, or cores waiting whilst another part of the instruction pipeline is busy on the P core.

What we get to see is if virtual threads trump virtual cores to manage thread pipeline usage...

OEMs do not typically sell many K-skus, instead they will be selling the baseline Core Ultra 5s and Ultra 3s which have at best half the Xe cores of these higher end K-skus. So no there will be no Office PC parity with the 8500G though matching the lowly 1030 in some games may be possible.

The 285 and 265 (non K) are listed as having the 4 Xe 'core' tile. What the 245 and 235 end up with I'm not sure. The 245K supposedly has a 4Xe setup so I'd expect the non K to be the same.
Agreed that lowest tier products will likely get the 2 Xe tile, but the 4Xe definitely not limited to just K SKUs.

So in that sense, there will be a fair few office PCs with the higher performance Xe tile (but yes lots and lots of lower tier with the lower performance Xe tile).

 

[Lew Zealand]

The 285 and 265 (non K) are listed as having the 4 Xe 'core' tile. What the 245 and 235 end up with I'm not sure. The 245K supposedly has a 4Xe setup so I'd expect the non K to be the same.
Agreed that lowest tier products will likely get the 2 Xe tile, but the 4Xe definitely not limited to just K SKUs.

So in that sense, there will be a fair few office PCs with the higher performance Xe tile (but yes lots and lots of lower tier with the lower performance Xe tile).

Probably closer to just a few. According to the chart at Tom's:

Detailed specs for dozen Intel Arrow Lake desktop CPUs leaks ahead of touted October 10 launch date

Can Intel rise up from the ashes with its Arrow Lake chips?

www.tomshardware.com

the office PC Ultra 5 (non-K) has half the XE cores of the 245K, and those CPUs and lower will be the bulk of office PC purchases. These PCs rarely got an i7 (I do have a single i7-4790 Optiplex though) and I've still never seen an i9 in one. Still, I'd like to see a complete list somewhere as maybe the 235 or 245 (non-K) will get the better iGPU.

 

[Vincero]

These PCs rarely got an i7 (I do have a single i7-4790 Optiplex though) and I've still never seen an i9 in one.

As much as that is likely due to the IT purchasing team being stingy (albeit realistic in terms of the average office worker), I also like to think that (especially for the SFF type Optiplex / business desktop systems) the cooling and power requirements for every i9 have probably nuked that idea.... This is how execs end up with Precision workstations just to use outlook and PowerPoint...

 

[Chaitanya]

It's not a great performance, but disaster is an exaggeration.

Fabbed at TSMC, dropped HT to save die space, overpriced(thank TSMC prices for that), and then there is performance so yeah overall a disaster.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Fabbed at TSMC, dropped HT to save die space, overpriced(thank TSMC prices for that),

They dropped HT for technical security reasons, not cost reasons.

and then there is performance so yeah overall a disaster.

Oh, so you're going to join in the choir, eh?

Moving on, I sense a 255K coming with 6P+12E cores.

 

[katzi]

So reading this, i'm sticking to the ole 5800X3D lol.

 

[docnorth]

OEMs do not typically sell many K-skus, instead they will be selling the baseline Core Ultra 5s and Ultra 3s which have at best half the Xe cores of these higher end K-skus. So no there will be no Office PC parity with the 8500G though matching the lowly 1030 in some games may be possible.

I don't remember the upcoming Arrow Lake specs, but 1x500 Intel CPUs and above had the same, "better", iGPU. It could indeed matter for OEMs, although even a weak dGPU frees power budget for the CPU.

 

[Chaitanya]

They dropped HT for technical security reasons, not cost reasons.

Oh, so you're going to join in the choir, eh?

Moving on, I sense a 255K coming with 6P+12E cores.

Without or with HT Intel CPUs were riddled with security issues and thats not what their marketting material and press has been saying.

Intel Dumping Hyper-Threading in Its Next-Gen Chips? That Could Be a Good Thing

Rumor has it: With its "Arrow Lake" processors, Intel could ditch its familiar core-doubling technology. The upside of such a radical move might surprise you.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Nostras]

got my 7600 for 180€ and 245k is 379€ , its crazy.

I mean yeah, the 7600 has been on sale for ages and has spiritually been replaced by another chip. I don't expect the 245k to hold the price at all. We could say the same about the 9000 series launch...

 

[regs]

got my 7600 for 180€ and 245k is 379€ , its crazy.

They are not to compare. In many workloads 245K is closer 9700X.

 

[Nostras]

They are not to compare. In many workloads 245K is closer 9700X.

It's kinda obvious he's talking about gaming performance.

 

[gridracedriver]

For 300€ this is a good all-round CPU, the ultra 7 265 is saved in Multithread, the ultra 9 285 on the other hand, poor thing...

 

[dirtyferret]

Yep, I've seen that, but to quote the rest of my comment:


What we get to see is if virtual threads trump virtual cores to manage thread pipeline usage...

I get what you are saying but lets remember HT has been around for more than two decades. So the other thread you can go into and make whatever prediction you like. Given time I would expect better thread pipeline usage but maybe it never truly gets straighten out either. Only time will tell.

Intel was aiming for a more well rounded CPU and the review shows they hit the mark.

I'm not sure it's well rounded but it's not a disaster.
1) Clearly this architecture is aimed at servers, work stations, and companies that produce PCs (DELL, HP, etc.,). Basically DELL no longer has to worry about constant customer complaints like this and can start selling Ultra 9 CPUs that have better margins for both the PC producers and Intel. So from a business standpoint, it's not a disaster in that area. Intel focused on a side the business that has better margins and higher volume.
2) Their launch you can call a disaster (and several reviewers have) If there is one thing Intel knew how to do was launch a new socket. These Ultras look completely rushed with little support to the mobo partners. This is the kind of stuff Intel used to make fun of AMD for since they liked to stick to sockets for so long.
3) The that leaves the real disaster for the at home DIY builders & at home desktop community who mostly use their PCs for gaming, web browsing, MS office. All the things these Ultras don't do as well as their previous generation versions or AMD counterparts. Yes they are capable but also pricer so why get an Ultra 245 for $320 when the Intel 14600k is $255 and does all the basic at home things better? It's also a disaster for the AMD fan boys hoping to score a bargain on the 7800X3D or the 9800X3D coming out early. Why in the world would AMD sell the former at a lower price now or rush to bring out the latter at a lower price? If I'm AMD it's sand bagging time for performance and make my stockholders happy with high margins.

So in the long run maybe Intel is right with this new architecture or maybe they are wrong but it looks to me as the real winners would be Intel (maybe) AMD, their respective stockholders, and the companies that mass produce PCs. That leaves the consumer as the loser.

They dropped HT for technical security reasons, not cost reasons.

also helped with power efficiency