Gaming Performance
Now we come to the interesting testing we are sure you all can’t wait for, we were also anxious to get to this part and see how it all ends up for gaming performance. We are testing only at 1080p, to isolate CPU performance. We are using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card with driver version 565.90. All games are being run in their “Ultra” game settings, at native 1080p resolution, and with no ray tracing. In some games, we have set the desktop also to 1080p for Windowed/Borderless Window games.
Importantly, we are using ALL manual run-throughs for every game here, not a single built-in benchmark was used, these are all manual run-throughs actually in the game, playing the game. We have also included testing on the 285K and 245K in the Windows 11 Power Mode profiles of “Balanced” and “Best Performance” as well, for gaming, since we found that it makes a difference in performance. Every other CPU comparison on the graph was tested in the “Balanced” Power Mode profile. In the graphs “Win11: PM” stands for Windows 11 Power Mode.
Alan Wake 2
Oof, is about all we can say. As you look through these graphs, this is a pattern you are going to see more often than not. One thing is very clear, there is a specific performance difference between the “Balanced” Windows 11 Power Mode profile and “Best Performance” profile. The “Balanced” power profile degrades performance quite a bit on the Intel Core Ultra 200S series CPUs, across the board in games as you will see. Keep in mind that all the other CPUs for comparison on this graph are in the “Balanced” power profile, and did not experience this phenomenon. The fact that earlier in this review we saw “Balanced” mode degrading single-core/single-thread performance aligns with the fact that gaming performance would be slower in that profile as well.
In Alan Wake 2, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 8% slower in the “Balanced” power profile mode, compared to “Best Performance.” The 245K is 5% slower. Therefore, if we compare in a like-for-like “Balanced” profile, then the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is a whopping 18% slower than the previous generation Intel Core i9-14900K at its default BIOS profile setting. The 285K would then be 14% slower than the Ryzen 9 9950X. The 245K is 14% slower than the 14600K and 9-10% slower than the 9700X and 9600X.
If we bump the 285K up to the “Best Performance” power profile mode, it’s faster but still sits in the bottom bracket of performance compared to every CPU. The 285K in Best Performance is 11% slower than the 14900K and 6% slower than the 9950X. The 245K is 9% slower than the 14600K and 4% slower than the 9700X and 9600X.
Clearly leading the pack is the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is 21% faster than the fastest performance of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K.
Black Myth Wukong
Black Myth Wukong is not the best CPU-bottlenecked game, to be quite honest. However, this is a brand new game, that has been very popular and well-received, and so we wanted to include it. Since it is a modern game, it uses a modern game engine, and effects, and therefore is relevant for testing in that regard. To try and make it more CPU bottlenecked, we did run the game at 1080p and also dropped the desktop to 1080p to force this Borderless Window game to run at 1080p, and we are using a long manual run-through, and Ultra game settings.
As we can see, this game, as expected does not show a large variance in performance with the CPUs. That said, there is a clear pattern here, regardless, that can be seen. Both the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K CPUs fall into the bottom of the chart, trailing performance behind every other CPU. Though the performance isn’t far apart, it’s a pattern that can at least be seen very well, and one that you will see repeated in our gaming testing today.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K trails the 14900K by 2.4%, and the 9950X by 2%. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K trails the 14600K by 2% and trails the 9700X and 9600X as well. The leader, unsurprisingly, is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Again, this is not Earth-shattering, but it’s the pattern we wanted you to notice, and so now let’s get to some other games that absolutely do show CPU bottlenecked performance differences well.
Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West is another recent new game to the PC, but with a very clear console background, and we thought it might be interesting to take a look at what is probably a more lightly threaded game? Well, to no one’s surprise, the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 9 7950X3D lead in performance by quite a bit over everything else, offering an 8% performance advantage compared to the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in the Best Performance power mode profile.
Down from that, we do find the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K performing quite well in this game, and we also see a slight performance difference between the Balanced and Best Performance power mode profiles. The 285K is 3% slower in the Balanced power profile mode, compared to Best Performance. If we compare like-for-like power profile modes, then the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K matches performance with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X in gaming.
This places the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K about 2% faster than the Intel Core i9-14900K, which is very small. When we switch over to the Best Performance profile, the 285K is 3% faster than the 9950X and 5% faster than the 14900K, which is a bit more interesting. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is just 3% faster than the Intel Core i5-14600K but is slower than the 9700X by 1% but faster than the 9600X by a good margin of 6%.
The Last of Us Part I
In The Last of Us Part I, this is pretty much the only game where we didn’t see much difference between the “Balanced” and “Best Performance” power profiles. In this game, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is slower than the Intel Core i9-14900K by 2%. When compared to the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K looks more favorable, as it is 6% faster, which is a decent result compared to the competition.
The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 3% faster than the Intel Core i5-14600K, which isn’t big, but at least it’s a positive result, unlike the 285K. When we compare the 245K to the Ryzen 9700X we find that both seem to be on par, or parity, with each other. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K does appear to be 7% faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X, which is also very decent.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D take the lead. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is 7% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, and the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is 12% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K.