The Core Ultra 2-series Arrow Lake Lineup

Intel is launching five processor models today, across three brand extensions—Core Ultra 9, Core Ultra 7, and Core Ultra 5. Intel switched to this nomenclature with its Core Ultra Meteor Lake series on the mobile platform, and they succeed Core i9, Core i7, and Core i5, respectively. The Core Ultra 9 has just one SKU, the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K. There is no variant of this chip without integrated graphics—there's no "285KF" to succeed the i9-14900KF.

The Core Ultra 9 285K maxes out the Arrow Lake-S silicon, with a full 8P+16E core configuration. That's 8 "Lion Cove" performance cores, 16 "Skymont" efficiency cores, and the chip's full 36 MB L3 cache available on the Compute tile. The E-cores come with a base frequency of 3.20 GHz, and boost up to 4.60 GHz. The P-cores have a 3.70 GHz base frequency, a 5.50 GHz Turbo Boost frequency, a 5.60 GHz Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequency (spreads across up to four cores), and a Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) frequency of 5.70 GHz (up to two cores, assuming temperature headroom).

Next up, is the Core Ultra 7 265K, and its variant without integrated graphics, the Core Ultra 7 265KF. This comes with an 8P+12E configuration, similar to its predecessor, the Core i7-14700K. Interestingly, the shared L3 cache size has generationally reduced to 30 MB, from the 33 MB that the i7-14700K has. The 265K comes with an E-core base frequency of 3.30 GHz and boost frequency of 4.60 GHz, a P-core base frequency of 3.90 GHz, Turbo Boost frequency of 5.40 GHz, and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequency of 5.50 GHz. There's no TVB for this segment.

Lastly, there is the Core Ultra 5 245K, and its iGPU-disabled variant, the Core Ultra 5 265KF. This retains the 6P+8E core configuration of its past two generations of predecessors, and shared 24 MB of L3 cache among the cores. The 265K has the highest E-core base frequency of the series, at 3.60 GHz, but with the same 4.60 GHz maximum E-core boost frequency. It also has the highest P-core base frequency at 4.20 GHz, which boosts up to 5.20 GHz. There's no Turbo Boost Max 3.0 or TVB.

The P-cores on all five models come with 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache. This is higher than the 2.5 MB per core that the "Lion Cove" P-cores come with on Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake mobile processors. The "Skymont" E-cores are arranged in clusters of 4 cores, each. Each cluster shares a 4 MB L2 cache among the four cores. We will learn more about the two CPU core types in the following pages.

On all SKUs with integrated graphics, the iGPU is branded simply "Intel Graphics." This iGPU is based on the Xe-LPG graphics architecture (same one powering the iGPU of Meteor Lake). It comes with 4 Xe cores or 64 execution units (EU), worth 512 unified shaders. All three processor models with this iGPU come with a GPU base frequency of 300 MHz. The 285K and 265K offer up to 2.00 GHz GPU boost frequency, while the 245K tops out at 1.90 GHz.

The integrated NPU 3 unit is available on all five processor models, it features two Gen 3 NCEs (neural compute engines), and offers a peak performance of 13 TOPS, which falls well short of the 40 TOPS required by Microsoft Copilot+ AI PC certification, and compares closer to the NPU 3 found in Meteor Lake processors.

Intel is sticking with its power ratings system it started with the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake." All five processor models come with 125 W processor base power. The 285K, 265K, and 265KF come with 250 W maximum turbo power. The 245K and 245KF, on the other hand, have their maximum turbo power value reduced to 159 W. This is interesting, as this value used to be 181 W for its Core i5 predecessors, such as the i5-14600K and i5-13600K. There's more to report on power, so stay tuned.


As for pricing, the Core Ultra 9 285K is positioned on the top, with a suggested price of USD $589. This is followed by the Core Ultra 7 265K at $394. The 265KF can be had for $379. The Core Ultra 5 245K goes for $309, followed by the 245KF at $294. These are the exact same price points Intel launched the previous generation i9-14900K, i7-14700K/KF, and the i5-14600K/KF at, respectively.

All processors being announced today go on sale from October 23, 2024.