Looking at the leaks for the Arrow Lake Refresh processors, there were supposed to be three new processors. However, at launch, there were only two: the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. Although the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was planned, it was cancelled at the last minute, just before its launch. Reasons given: performance differences deemed too small compared with the refreshed Core Ultra 7.
Core Ultra 9 290K Plus: cancelled at the last minute!
Performance gains too small!
If we are to believe what is being said, the engineering samples produced by Intel showed limited performance gains compared to the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. It has to be said that the CPU, apart from frequency gains, didn’t offer much more than the existing Core Ultra 9 285K. Worse still, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus gained cores, enabling it to offer a configuration equivalent to that of the Core Ultra 9 285K, just a few hundred MHz less. So it wasn’t the 300 MHz added to the 290K Plus that would have enabled it to fully distinguish itself… In fact, this would not have been the case, since we’re only talking about 2-3% more performance for an extra 300 MHz. Add to that increased heat dissipation and more pronounced power consumption, and we’d have had a CPU shunned by consumers.
Value for money would not have been good either:
With this, the performance/price ratio wouldn’t have been very good either. This CPU would have had to battle it out against the 270K Plus, which is very aggressive in terms of pricing, while the addition of four E-Cores enables it, via overclocking, to come back on the Core Ultra 9 285K. Yes, this model also features an unlocked multiplication coefficient, making it easier to increase frequency. What’s more, it’s also questionable whether it makes sense to offer three overclockable CPUs with 8 P-Core and 16 E-Core.
