Rendering Performance
Cinebench R23
We are using Cinebench R23 to look at multi-core and single-core performance, which is shown in separate graphs below. In the graphs “Win11: PM” stands for Windows 11 Power Mode.
Similar to our testing so far, in Cinebench R23 we see that there is a lesser difference in performance between the “Balanced” and “Best Performance” Windows 11 power profile modes in multi-core performance.
Therefore, we see here that the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 10-11% faster than the previous generation Intel Core i9-14900K, which is the best gains we’ve seen so far. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is just a small 3% faster than the Ryzen 9 9950X, however, so that isn’t very large. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is just a small 4% faster than the previous generation Intel Core i5-14600K. However, it is a larger 28% faster than the AMD Ryzen 9700X, which is pretty impressive considering the core count. If we compare the 245K to the Ryzen 5 9600X, the 245K is 54% faster.
Looking at Cinebench R23 single-core (1T) performance we see once again how devastating the “Balanced” Windows 11 power profile is for the Intel Core Ultra 200S series CPUs in single-core performance. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 11% slower in “Balanced” power profile, and the the 245K is 14% slower. Reminder, that every other comparison CPU on this graph is being run on the “Balanced” power profile setting.
Therefore, if we compare like-for-like at Balanced, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 7% slower than the Intel Core i9-14900K from the previous generation. It is also 7% slower than the Ryzen 9 9950X. The 245K is 17% slower than the 9700X and 9600X.
When we use the “Best Performance” power profile then the 285K is 5% faster than the 14900K and 4% faster than the 9950X, also not a large improvement overall. The 245K in Best Performance is 4% slower than the 9700X and 3% slower than the 9600X.
Blender Open Data Benchmark
We are using the latest Blender Benchmark with Blender 4.2.0 downloaded, results are in samples per minute, with the highest being the best.
Blender is a good test of multi-core performance, and we see the power profiles play less of a part in performance differences, though there is a 2% difference on the 285K. In Blender the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in the monster scene is a good bit faster than the 14900K, improving performance by 14%, which is a very good uplift generationally speaking. However, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is just on par, or parity, with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.
The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is only 5% faster than the Intel Core i5-14600K, however, which is a very small generational uplift. The Core Ultra 5 245K is therefore 20% faster than the 9700X and 49% faster than the 9600X, which is a very good uplift compared to the competition.
In the Junkshop scene, we see the AMD Ryzen 9950X take a commanding lead in this one. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 10% slower than the Ryzen 9 9950X. The 285K ends up being 7% faster than the 14900K, down from the Monster scene in the graph above. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 2% slower than the previous generation Intel Core i5-14600K, however. The 245K is 8% faster than the 9700X and 34% faster than the 9600X.
In the Classroom scene, we once again see the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X on top in performance. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 2% slower than the 9950X. The 285K is however 15% faster than the previous generation Intel Core i9-14900K, which is a great uplift for a generation. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is also faster than the 14600K by 8% and faster than the 9700X by 20% and faster than the 9600X by 49%.
V-Ray 6 Benchmark
The new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X does exceptionally well in V-RAY 6, and ends up being 13% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. This means the 285K is 11% slower than the 9950X. However, the 285K is much faster than the 14900K, improving performance by 14% which is a very decent generational uplift in performance. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is very close to 14600K performance though, at just 5% faster. The 245K is 6% faster than the 9700X and 30% faster than the 9600X.
HandBrake
In HandBrake, we transcode a 10-minute video file to the Creator 2160p60 4K H.264 profile preset, rendering on the CPU only. The time in minutes is reported, and lower is better.
In HandBrake we are directly transcoding a video on the CPU (no iGPU or GPU help). Clearly, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X are on equal footing here, producing similar render times. This is an improvement over the Intel Core i9-14900K by about 4%, which overall is fairly small, but an improvement nonetheless. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is another story, it actually did perform a little slower than the Intel Core i5-14600K, a 1-2% difference, but it was just that bit slower than the previous generation. It did however allow a faster render time compared to the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X by a great, noticeable, amount (14% compared to the 9700X and 29% compared to the 9600X).
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Those are some dissapointing results for gaming, kinda leaves me at an annoying point, 9800X3D is only an 8 core providing it launches when it's rumoured to (early november) rest is early next year and I don't realy want to go previous gen.
Also like I said in the other thread, the ultra 9 and 5 are already sold out at some outlets around here. intel still going strong (or no stock to speak off)
There are people who will buy Intel even when they have no logical reason to do so. I work with a guy like that. He won't buy anything else because of the reputation non-Intel CPU's had in the 1990's.
Gotta know supply to gauge demand...
My take: This is a transitional product that lays the ground work for future releases. This isn't remotely the first time Intel has done this. The Wilamette Socket 423 Pentium IV's were such a product. It introduced RAMBUS memory and they were often out performed by their Pentium III counterparts, especially Tualatin CPU's. The socket Northwood Socket 478 stuff was a lot better. The Prescott core CPU's were also kind of transitional as these were built with even deeper pipeline stages to ramp the clocks up even more. Their EM64T extensions were present on the core but weren't enabled (excluding one model) until the transition to LGA sockets.
Unfortunately, the only real benefit to these is that they shouldn't have any degradation and stability issues in games where as the 13th and 14th generation CPU's did prior to microcode updates and BIOS updates were created to mitigate them. Assuming your CPU wasn't degrading to start with.
Not competitive, high price, a short lived platform and Win 11 is a mess. Nothing ever works as intended at launch. What is wrong with these companies? Fumbling the ball at the 1-yd line seems to be the norm. Bush league overall...
@Brent_Justice - what I'm seeing about is that by decoupling the memory controller from the compute die, Intel has added latency to main memory access. Do we know if this is reflected in say AIDA64?
@Dan_D - looks like we're going to have to see if Intel can overcome the above latency issue the same way AMD did when they went to chiplets with Zen.
I think they can. How they would be able to mitigate this is unclear to me but this is the type of thing Intel is typically good at engineering their way through historically. Generally speaking, Intel's CPU's have not been effected by latency to the same degree as AMD's. AMD for one reason or another has always dealt with that to some degree. AMD's answer for the most part was simply to throw L3 cache at the problem which doesn't work in all scenarios.
Though throwing L3 cache at the problem is a simple fix, but its a costly one.
AMDs use of stacking for the L3 cache on a CCD, which in turn they can use for gaming SKUs as well as enterprise (which they originally created them for), is genius.
Imagine slow(er) Zen 3 and Zen 4 cores (both clockspeed and IPC vs. Alder/Raptor P-cores) not only outrunning them but also doing so at 1/2 the power draw for gaming.
Now imagine Intel P-cores backed up by enough L3 cache to make memory latency irrelevant.
I think Intel needs to copy AMD here (or emulate? imitate?) and find a way to get that cache in a die with broader market appeal (i.e. also usable in Xeons). Their chiplet setup should enable them to do so.
One thing that's been sticking in my mind with the Arrow Lake release is that this is the first time Intel has decoupled their memory controller from their compute dies since... Core 2? At least in the consumer space (so not talking about buffered DIMMs). AMD did with Zen 2 IIRC. Intel has been using IMCs since Lynnfield in the i7 870 from 2009, 15 years ago!
I'm not sure that this is even possible. I think there are probably scenarios where simply adding cache doesn't help.
Well, AMD had an integrated memory controller since the Athlon 64 days. However, Intel's Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad were the last CPU's to have an off-die memory controller. Though it was in the chipset at the time and not anywhere on the CPU itself.
I believe its two things:
1. Consumers buy products that suck on the promise that they will be fixed later
2. Development practices that involve the term: MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Number 2 combined with number 1 just continuously lowers the bar for number 2.
Thanks, @Brent_Justice for the very detailed review of these CPUs and extra testing with both power modes. It's a shame that APO isn't supported for the games reviewed, especially since they are popular titles that users are likely to have in their libraries. I wonder if Intel will be able to provide updates later on which might improve those results. Really interesting how CB2077 has a prioritize P-core option that only further proved there are other potential gains to be had.
A lot to unpack with these and obviously Intel is experimenting with a number of strategies with them.
I will have more information in an upcoming review, but installing some DDR5 CUDIMMs 8400, but running at 8200 MT/s currently, AIDA64's Cache Mem latency result is 88ns this is at 8200MT/s CL40-50-50-128 CR2. I will have some memory comparison data in an upcoming article at 6400, 8200, 8400 and 8600 on this motherboard with this RAM kit, so stay tuned. But my first reaction is that this isn't bad latency, I think it was worse at the beginning of all this, but as new BIOS's have come out, latency has improved. MSI's fix notes state XMP and memory performance optimization with the new BIOS releases I'm using.
I really want an all P-Core option, an 8-Pcore only or 12-Pcore only CPU would be a great option for gaming.
I am NOT a fan of big.LITTLE / hybrid architecture on x86 desktops. Intel please give us P-core only options!
I would prefer only p-cores too, but due to the lack of HT would we not require like at least a 10 or12 core if you need 8 for games already.
I mean testing conditions is one thing, but a real everyday use system usually has more running in the background then just the bare minimum.