Final Thoughts on the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus & Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus
This review has been a fun one! It is the first time we’ve just compared two similar processors, not an entire lineup. I think one of the biggest questions first-time builders have is “will the mid-range processor be enough for me?” Testing just these two processors really answered that question for me. It really comes down to what you are going to be doing with these processors.
If you are simply just gaming a not much more the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus will for sure get the job done. In our testing most of our gaming benchmarks were essentially identical, and this is at 1080P, 1440P, and 4K resolutions. You really are not going to notice a difference gaming with the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus or the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus.
Now if you wanted to do something other than just gaming the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the obvious winner here. You are going to get more cores, which means things like streaming, photo and video editing, and multi-tasking are just going to be better as many of these applications are designed for highly-threaded workloads.
Unlike previous Intel refreshes this one actually seems significant. We typically expect a simple bump in speed and not much more from Intel, but here we get added cores, faster speeds, more L3 cache, and they even increased the die-to-die frequency. All-in-all it was a much better refresh and honestly out of the ordinary for Intel. But hey we are not complaining here! A big part of getting more from Intel has been AMD’s competitiveness.
I think the biggest thing Intel has going for them with these new processors is the price. Intel went very aggressive on the pricing with these two, even compared to their own lineup. I definitely feel like this was needed to get into the good graces of enthusiasts. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is $100 cheaper (at $299) compared to the Ultra 7 265K and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is $120 cheaper (at $199) compared to the Ultra 5 265K. There are even some really compelling bundle deals going on right now with motherboards and power supplies.
While this will be the end for Arrow Lake-S it is great to see Intel get back on track and give gamers and enthusiasts what they want!
