Conclusion
In our Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus versus Intel Core Ultra 5 245K CPU Performance Review, we benchmarked both CPUs to find out how much faster the new Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus “Arrow Lake Refresh” CPU really is.
The new Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop CPU series was launched in March, 2026 and represents a refresh of the current Arrow Lake architecture, based on the same Socket LGA1851 platform and motherboards. For $199 MSRP, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has been launched at a very competitive price point, considering the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K launched at $319 MSRP in October of 2024. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus brings some refreshes to the existing architecture, including upgrades in terms of Die-to-Die frequency, 4 extra E-Cores, more Cache, and the new Intel Binary Optimization Tool.
We therefore wanted to find out just how much faster the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is compared to the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K. How much more does it have to offer really? What do those Die-to-Die frequency changes, or 4 Extra E-Cores, really bring to the table for both multi-threading application performance and gaming? In today’s CPU performance comparison review, we pit the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus versus the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K in several application-focused, synthetic benchmarks, as well as 14 modern games, with some new releases including Crimson Desert and Resident Evil Requiem.
Synthetic Performance
Let’s start with the multi-threading, IPC, and synthetic benchmark testing first. One of the key new features of this refresh is the addition of 4 more E-Cores, and of course, the clock speed differences internally as well as the slight P-Core frequency increase. Since the architecture remains the same, IPC should be similar, save for clock speed differences; most benefit should be from the E-Cores or clock speed differences.
In the 3DMark CPU Profile test, we were able to customize the number of threads tested, and thus were able to see those advantages. Under the Max Threads test, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus did very well in comparison to the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, with a 16% performance advantage, showing what you can expect with the all-core difference between them; that’s a nice upgrade. Even when we equalized them more to 16 threads, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was still ahead by 9%. However, we did see that when equalized core-to-core, at 8 threads or fewer, the performance difference was about 2%. It was also 2% on 1 Thread. However, this 2% shows the higher P-Core clock speed differences, so that’s about what it brings to the table core-to-core.
Geekbench 6.7 revealed the same kind of information, though it tests in a more generalized way. Overall, Geekbench revealed 18% better performance with the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus over the Intel Core 5 245K, which is very impressive for multiple different types of workloads. Even in the Single-Core performance, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was 11% faster, which is significant. In PassMark PerformanceTEST the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was 21% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, again backing up that excellent system performance upgrade.
Where the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus also shone was in the very workload-specific content creation area. In Cinebench 2026, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was a whopping 26% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, and the Single-Core improvement was 8% faster. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is a real win here. In V-Ray 6 the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was 23% faster, and in Handbrake it was 13% faster. Overall, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus excels at content creation performance compared to the 245K, it’s a real upgrade, and saves time on renders and video transcoding.
Gaming Performance
We really wanted to put the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus through its paces in games, and make sure to test out as many as we could squeeze in, and try to get some newly released games in there as well. We tested 14 games at 1080p to test in a CPU-dependent scenario since we are testing CPU performance, not GPU performance. We used a GeForce RTX 5090 to give the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus as much headroom as we could to achieve all the framerates it can achieve, and see how much faster in framerate it allows over the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K. One thing people forget with the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, it has more Cache! 30MB compared to 24MB on the 245K, and this matters.
We aren’t going to list out every game here; make sure to check out the two game pages to see all the percentage results in each game with AVG FPS and 1% Lows shown and compared. Overall, like anything, things are game-dependent. However, there was a clear trend that we recognized. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus was generally faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K in games, to varying degrees based on the game. It was also the trend that the 1% Lows received a bigger increase overall. It was also a trend that the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus received larger performance upgrades over the 245K than the 270K Plus did over the 265K.
We experienced anywhere from a minimum of 1% performance difference between the CPUs, all the way up to a massive 21% in one game (30% higher 1% Lows), but that game was an outlier. If we take an average of the AVG uplift for the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, we get an average uplift of 6% performance improvement over the 245K. What is more interesting, though, is that the 1% Lows generally receive a higher percentage of performance uplift. Taking the average of the 1% Lows, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is 8% faster than the 245K. Indeed, generally the 1% Lows sometimes had higher percentage increases than the AVG FPS; some were significant in the just under 10% range.
Keep in mind as well that only two games in our testing suite benefited from the Intel Binary Optimization Tool software here, Hogwarts and Cyberpunk. Otherwise, every other game wasn’t using the Intel Binary Optimization Tool or even the APO optimizations. That is actually great news to see, then, when a new game like Crimson Desert that has just come out, and has no APO or Binary Optimizations, yet still performs well. In fact, in that game, the 1% Lows increased by 9% with the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. Hogwarts Legacy was also greatly affected with a big improvement with the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus in the 1% Lows.
Final Points
The benefits of the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus are actually pretty impressive over the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K was never a bad CPU, but for the performance offered, the pricing was a bit steep. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus seems to fix all of that, and make the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus a much more viable CPU if content creation, or multi-threading application performance is something you need, along with gaming performance.
There was one weakness of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, and that was gaming performance. It was always in the backseat on performance, and the 1% Lows suffered in games. Well, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus seems to be a worthy improvement over the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K for gaming. We experienced worthwhile AVG framerate improvements. However, the real gain was in the 1% Low performance improvements, those really shone with the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus.
There are a few things that the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus really has going for it. It has 4 extra E-Cores that make a difference for multi-threaded or content creation workloads, so basically, your system is faster. Getting actual work done is faster, real render work. It also has a slightly boosted P-Core frequency, which does show up with a little bit more extra performance in the numbers. The internal frequency improvements also seem to generally help the CPU achieve better performance in both apps and games. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus also has more cache, a shared L3 of 30MB compared to the small 24MB on the 245K, and this helps in everything, making a difference.
The power is also not incredibly demanding, consuming only 13% more power while gaming, and 17% in Multi-Threading, it isn’t a lot when you consider the low Wattage it already operates at. While Gaming, that’s just 115W, and even in multi-threading, it is well under 200W. It also runs very cool, in the 60’s gaming, and 71c in Multi-Threading, so this CPU doesn’t run hot. It makes a good case for the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus to be run in a small form factor, or SFF build. It would really bring a lot of content creation performance to an SFF machine.
When you take all that we said above, with the fact that the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has an MSRP of just $199, yep, $199! The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus looks like an incredible value. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K launched at $319, yet this new refresh is faster and cheaper! What more could you want? Faster and Cheaper is the pinnacle of what we desire out of new hardware releases.
We have more comparisons like this planned, with the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K coming up next, as well as a full review with comparisons to AMD equivalents, and some fun RAM testing as well, so stay tuned. Be sure to check out our Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Intel Core Ultra 7 265K Review.
