The headline numbers are hard to ignore. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus packs 24 cores (8 Performance + 16 Efficient) with a max turbo of 5.5 GHz, while the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus comes with 18 cores (6P+12E) clocking up to 5.3 GHz. Both chips get up to +900 MHz in die-to-die frequency, which is a notable bump over their non-Plus predecessors.



Multicore gains that hit AMD where it hurts



Intel is claiming up to 2x faster multicore performance versus AMD's competing Ryzen chips. Specifically, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus scored up to 103% higher than the Ryzen 5 9600X in 3DMark CPU Profile Max Threads, while the 270K Plus posted up to 92% gains over the Ryzen 7 9700X in Cinebench 2024 Multi Core. These are Intel's own benchmarks, of course, but the margins are wide enough to raise eyebrows.



Gaming gets a solid push, with a software trick up Intel's sleeve



On the gaming front, the 270K Plus delivers an average 15% uplift over the outgoing Core Ultra 7 265K across six tested titles at 1080p High. Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw the biggest jump at 39%, though some of those gains come courtesy of Intel's new Binary Optimization Tool—a software layer that uses Intel's compiler IP to reduce architectural contention in supported games.



Pricing starts at $199 for the 250K Plus and $299 for the 270K Plus. The Intel 800 Series platform is also expanding, with 12 new motherboards and early support for 4R CUDIMM memory.