Intel Core Ultra 200S CPU Review
Conclusion
Conclusion
We spoke in our introduction about our delight at companies involving themselves in the mad pursuit of performance.
Looking through today’s results, two things become clear. Firstly, that the Core i9-14900KS is still the unchallenged king of the hill in nearly all scenarios. It has performance to burn. Secondly, the use of the word burn there is intentional. It’s stupidly hot and thirsty, to the point it is difficult to live with. That heat problem has been the Achilles Heel of Intel for a while now. The 12th Gen were pretty warm, the 13th didn’t improve, and the 14th were hot across the board.
Thankfully even Intel realised that endless increase is untenable and have stopped and taken stock of things with the Core Ultra processors. As AMD can well attest – and we’ll get to comparisons in a moment – some times you just have to stop seeking to endlessly grab performance headlines and take your medicine. Although Intel have mentioned in the slides we saw on the second page of this review that they’re expecting performance improvements, in general we found these Core Ultra 200S processors matched their 14th Gen counterparts.
To give you an example, Cinebench R23. Ultra 9 scores 40797 vs the Core i9-14900K’s 40720. The Ultra 7 and Core i7 is 35431 vs 35215, whilst the Ultra 5 and Core i5 are 24534 vs 24375. As near as makes no difference identical performance, just these three Core Ultra processors do it cooler, and requiring less energy. It doesn’t make for attention grabbing headlines and models flying off of shelves. However, as we said, some times you have to take your medicine. These are perfect if you’re on an older – 10th gen or earlier – setup and want to upgrade to a 14th Gen level of performance without having to live in the arctic.
What Else?
The fly in Intel’s ointment is unquestionably AMD. Almost since it launched, the Ryzen processor range has been a match for Intel’s output. We’ve only just seen the 9000 series of processors launch, and they’re unbelievably capable performers and cool and efficient. Their flagship Ryzen 9 9950X in our test rig requires less power than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K does. So for once, if anything, Intel are catching up to AMD with this launch.
Our overriding feeling is one of a rudimentary launch. Behind the scenes getting the Intel Core Ultra processors to work was a massive faff. We grew weary of reinstalling Windows and updating BIOS. The performance we saw was consistent to a point. However, the “what we did” bore no linear relationship to “how it performed”. We’ve been at this a while. Heck Intel have been at this a while. We know what we’re doing and we know they do. This launch feels like they don’t. Or, rather, like some stakeholders felt something was ready for the public that the R&D team didn’t. This isn’t Intel’s Waterloo, but it might be their Marengo.
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