Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus appears on Geekbench

Intel looks to be entering the final stages of preparation for its Arrow Lake Refresh (Core Ultra Series 2 Plus) desktop launch, with new benchmarks for the mid-range Core Ultra 5 250K Plus surfacing on Geekbench. The “16th Gen” is expected to act as the final performance push for the LGA-1851 socket before the much-anticipated transition to Nova Lake later this year.

The leaked benchmark (via Benchleaks) provides our first real look at how the upcoming CPU handles the increased core counts and tuned clock speeds planned for the refresh. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus scored 3,113 points in the single-core test and 15,251 points in the multi-core test in a system equipped with an Asus Prime Z890-P WIFI motherboard with 32 GB of RAM.

While the single-core result shows a healthy lead over many standard Core Ultra 5 245K runs (which typically land under 3,000), the multi-core score is curiously lower than the 17,000-18,000 range often seen from the current 245K. This discrepancy is likely due to the early nature of the testing and may be resolved as BIOS optimisations and final retail silicon reach the market.

Technically, the 250K Plus offers a notable jump in core density for the Ultra 5 tier. It is claimed to be an 18-core processor featuring a 6P+12E configuration, up from the 14-core (6P+8E) layout of the 245K. The chip reportedly features a 5.3 GHz P-core boost and natively supports DDR5-7200 memory. Despite the extra efficiency cores, the processor is expected to maintain its 125W base and 159W maximum turbo power ratings.

KitGuru says: The Arrow Lake Refresh is shaping up to be an interesting, albeit short-lived, chapter for Intel. With the high-end Core Ultra 9 290K Plus reportedly cancelled to avoid product overlap, the weight of this generation rests on the 270K and 250K Plus models. Based on the leaked benchmarks of these two chips, do you think they'll have a place in the current market?

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