Conclusion
In our benchmarking of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus versus Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, we found that the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the top performer from this generation for Intel CPUs. Intel CPUs have had the unique ability to be able to run CUDIMM memory and operate at very high frequencies, such as 8800MT/s DDR5 speeds.
With the launch of the Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop CPU Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs, the highest officially supported memory speed was moved up to 7200MT/s. However, this is not the stopping place, indeed there are RAM kits that exceed this quite easily on this platform. Therefore, MSI supplied us with the ability to test higher-speed memory from Kingston on the new Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and find out if higher-speed memory past 7200MT/s actually provides a benefit.
In our testing today, we took two Kingston Fury Renegade RAM Kits and utilized the built-in XMP profiles to set performance from 7200MT/s up to 8800MT/s. The Kingston Fury Renegade 7600MT/s DDR5 RGB UDIMM RAM Kit allowed us to utilize 7200MT/s and 7600MT/s with CL38 timings. The Kingston Fury Renegade 8800MT/s DDR5 RGB CUDIMM Kit allowed us to utilize 8400MT/s at CL40 and 8800MT/s at CL42 timings. We tested on the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, which has the highest performance from Intel on this desktop generation. We used the latest drivers, game patches, and all the data was refreshed and run anew for this review.
Final Points
The results quite honestly speak for themselves; timing and latency do matter with the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. Though you can brute force your way up to much higher memory bandwidth with looser timings, this actually ends up becoming a detriment to performance. That extra bandwidth makes up for some of that and recovers some of that performance. Ultimately, if you can achieve a memory frequency at the lowest timings, better, below CL40, then you will experience the best performance on Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus desktop CPUs.
It was very clear from our testing that there is an advantage to running past 7200MT/s memory transfer rate, as long as you can keep the timings tight, or close to the same as that 7200MT/s XMP profile. Running 7200MT/s UDIMM at CL38, and keeping it at CL38 when running at 7600MT/s did provide a performance advantage throughout our testing. Whether it was synthetic benchmarks or gaming, 7600MT/s at CL38 seems to be the “sweet spot” for the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus.
There was a severe diminishing returns point past CL40, and looser timings, despite the mega transfer rate going way up. In order to overcome the looser timings, a much higher MT/s rate would be required, in excess of 9000+ MT/s at those same timings. It is clear that Intel moving the official supported speed up to 7200MT/s was advantageous for the Intel Core Ultra 200S and Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus CPUs. We can even see that moving beyond that, to 7600MT/s CL38, does provide a slight edge on performance, technically. Though if you look at it from a zoomed-out perspective, we are talking small potatoes, really. But hey, you are an enthusiast, and every percentage counts, right?
At the end of the day, faster RAM isn’t going to make your Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus CPU change your gaming experience. It can help in niche workstation situations where there might be certain known variables based on your specific workloads, where the bandwidth might help, if you are doing something specific that needs it. For gaming, it is not going to make a real-world difference, but if you want to ensure you are getting the most out of your CPU anyway, it looks like 7600MT/s CL38 is a sweet spot to target with the new Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus CPU. It seems Intel got it right, targeting the 7200MT/s memory transfer rate range with these CPUs.
Discussion (12 replies)
Join Discussion →Pretty much what I expected to see to be honest.
Try buying some???
Need a loan.....LoL
Would have been interesting to have some "run of the mill" 6000MT/s RAM like alot of folks use (because its affordable) to compare as a baseline......?
Some serious hot deals on Arrow plus combos right now. AIOs, Lego Batman, PSUs, boards. Also, 270K is below MSRP and the second best seller on Amazon today. Been a long time since a Intel CPU cracked the top 5.
Just wanted to point out that actual overclockers may take offense at there being no information available on the values for NGU, D2D and Ring. If those were kept at default then the memory overclocks are almost pointless due to there being a bottleneck in the flow of data between the CPU and RAM sticks. For anything over 8000 MT/s, NGU multiplier needs to be 34, D2D should ideally be 35 or higher and ring from 42 to 46 would be ideal. It's unfortunate that Intel did not make it so that these values are optimized automatically as RAM speed is increased.
My own 245KF was able to do NGU 34, D2D 35 (latest BIOS kept it at 30 despite setting a higher value) and ring 42. Sadly, the CPU is out of the socket of the mobo as I was trying to sell it so any benchmark data I have is inaccessible at the moment unfortunately.
Regarding the RAM timings, the sticks should be able to 7200C34 and 7600C36. The 8000+ timings seem to be ok.
Just did a web search on this, have yet to find a review that did the NGU/D2D/Ring overclocking, ect. Currently have my 265KF at 70.1ns latency. Wondering if 270K can get it any lower, or if I should even waste the $$?
The only low latency Arrow Lake champ right now is 250K/KF.
You may gain ~10 fps plus future APO/iBOT game/application support with 250KF.
There's unfortunately a rather glaring problem with the testing here which is comparing a kit using 16GB modules to one using 24GB. Subtimings are important and almost every single higher capacity module has higher cell refresh timings than an equivalent speed/primary latency lower capacity. That is absolutely the case here which throws off the results and in turn the conclusion. If one is trying to compare speed and primary timings the kit capacities really need to be the same.
What kinda latency are you getting with your setup??
y-cruncher score comparison 6000C42 vs. 8200C38 (NGU is 32 or 34, D2D is above 30 and Ring is 42)
6000C42:
8200C38:
Another multicore scaling benchmark here: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/arrow-lake-builders-thread.2622775/post-41610100
I haven't really done a lot of optimization as real life kept getting in the way. I did replace a 265K with the 270K Plus and they both performed within margin of error of each other when it came to latency using the same settings. I imagine best case scenario for latency with ARL is going to be based on bins more than SKU.
From what little tweaking I've done NGU seems to make a lot less difference than D2D. Subtimings on memory can also make a pretty big difference. The board I'm using has had some weird issues with DRAM timings so once I found stable numbers I just left it, but this is high up on my list for when I get time.
Skatterbencher puts out my favorite writeups (and also has videos) for CPU tweaking: https://skatterbencher.com/2025/06/18/skatterbencher-87-core-ultra-7-265k-overclocked-to-5700-mhz/
They've done more recent ones with the 270/250 as well.
Ok, upgraded to a 270k, and another new motherboard, since I bent socket pins (Rookie move, first time ever...) Proc clocks almost exactly like my 265KF, 56P core, 49 E core (265KF was 56/50. 41 cache, 33 NGU/D2D, Running 48gb Kingston Renegade 8400 @ 38-49-49-56 timings, same 71.3 ms latency as with 265KF as well. Seems to run cooler, and extra 4 cores. XTU benchmark went up nicely, as well as my 3DMark bench's. Have yet to run PCMark bench yet. All in all, runs well in a dead end platform, should keep me happy for @ least 4 yrs i'd hope.