Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus

Written analysis

Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus at a glance

The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture and is manufactured using the 3 nm process at TSMC. It uses the LGA 1851 socket with Z890, B860, W880, Q870, H810 chipsets, PCIe Gen 5, 20 Lanes (CPU only), and DDR5 memory up to 7200 MT/s across Dual-channel memory. This is a hybrid design with 6 performance cores at 4.20–5.30 GHz and 12 efficiency cores at 3.30–4.60 GHz, for 18 threads. Cache is 3072 kB L2 and 30 MB L3.

This is a Desktop processor using consumer memory and expansion standards. Its workload suitability is better described by the measured application and gaming scores below than by core count alone.

Base TDP is 125 W and maximum package power is 159 W. Use a high-capacity air or liquid cooler if the system will hold boost clocks under long workloads.

Integrated graphics: Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU with 4 GPU cores at 0.30–1.90 GHz. That is enough for display output, desktop work, and lighter games without a discrete GPU.

Best fit: Gaming-focused desktop builds that need strong CPU-limited frame-rate headroom.

Application performance

Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is an upper mid-range CPU, at 68.79% of the dataset’s best application performance. It handles professional work well, just not at flagship speed.

Application value is excellent at 98.3 performance per dollar.

Gaming performance

Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is a strong gaming CPU, at 81.20% of the dataset’s best 1080p CPU-limited gaming. At higher resolutions the GPU usually becomes the limit first.

Gaming value is exceptional at 76.2 performance per dollar.