Intel Arrow Lake CPUs benchmarked on Z890 motherboards — Core Ultra 7 265KF up to 4% faster than Core i9-14900K in Geekbench 6

Intel CPU
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel's upcoming Core Ultra 7 265KF and Core Ultra 5 245KF, which vie for a spot on the list of best CPUs, have been benchmarked in Geekbench 6 and Geekbench 5, respectively. Benchleaks on X discovered the Core Ultra 7 265KF was up to 4% faster than Intel's outgoing Core i9-14900KF flagship in Geekbench 6 and only 7% slower in multi-core performance. However, the chip showed unimpressive performance against its direct predecessor, the Core i7-14700KF.

The Core Ultra 7 265KF was benchmarked on a Gigabyte Z890 Aero G motherboard utilizing Geekbench 6.3.0. In the Geekbench 6 single-core benchmark, the Arrow Lake processor scored 3,219 points. In the multi-core benchmark, the chip scored 19,433 points. The same CPU and motherboard combo was also tested in Geekbench 6.3.0's GPU test, featuring an OpenCL score of 235,327 with an RTX 4080.

The Core Ultra 5 245K was benchmarked on a Colorful iGame Z890 Ultra motherboard but in a much older version of Geekbench—version 5.4.5. The mid-range Arrow Lake chip scored 2,248 points in the single-core benchmark and 18,354 points in the multi-core benchmark.

The Core Ultra 7 chip's score largely resembles Intel's Core i9-14900K flagship, boasting an official score of 3,085 and 20,763 points in the Geekbench 6 single and multi-core benchmarks. The Core Ultra 7 265KF managed to outpace the 14900K by 4% in single-core performance, but the 14900K can still outpace the 265KF in multi-core performance by 7%. Still, it is impressive to see a Core Ultra 7 product performing similarly to a Core i9.

However, against its direct predecessor, the Core i7-14700KF, the Arrow Lake's scores are less impressive. The i7-14700KF scored 3,004 points in the Geekbench 6 single-core test and 19,583 points in the multi-core test. This results in the Arrow Lake Ultra 7 part beating the 14700KF 7% in single-core performance but unable to win it in muti-core performance, where the 14700KF outperforms the Ultra 7 265KF by a fraction of a percentage.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to directly compare the Core Ultra 5 part to its predecessor or any chip. Geekbench has apparently removed its Geekbench 5 results, making it impossible to compare numbers to this older version of Geekbench.

Regardless, the Core Ultra 7's performance in Geekbench 6 is not promising. The Arrow Lake chip was unable to effectively outperform its predecessor in multi-core performance.

However, these results need to be taken with a grain of salt since these CPUs are possibly engineering or qualification samples that might not have the same clock speeds as their official production-ready counterparts.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • Gururu
    Like with the AMD 9000 reports, headlines all over the place! I am not sure this is that disappointing, but I feel comfortable keeping my 14700k for now. Geekbench 5 scores
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    I mean... Can they be benched in any other platform? :D

    Regards.
    Reply
  • jg.millirem
    Good reporting, but can Aaron and all TH writers please stop using the tiresome phrase “grain of salt”? Forever and everywhere.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    Slow leak is the marketing of today. Why pay for marketing when people will do it for you?

    "One small portion of sodium chloride crystal"

    I suppose they could use words like skeptical.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Assuming any of this is accurate an ARL part that topped out at ~5.5Ghz beating a RPL part that tops out at 6Ghz in single threaded doesn't seem too bad. I think it's fair to assume that whatever multithreaded uplift there is will be muted by the loss of HT for desktop parts.
    Reply
  • usertests
    jg.millirem said:
    Good reporting, but can Aaron and all TH writers please stop using the tiresome phrase “grain of salt”? Forever and everywhere.
    They can not and will not stop.

    thestryker said:
    Assuming any of this is accurate an ARL part that topped out at ~5.5Ghz beating a RPL part that tops out at 6Ghz in single threaded doesn't seem too bad. I think it's fair to assume that whatever multithreaded uplift there is will be muted by the loss of HT for desktop parts.
    The uplift for Skymont E-cores looks so large, it could offset the loss of HT when combined with a modest uplift for the P-cores.

    Due to the salt grain of this probably being an engineering sample, the numbers can continue to go up.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    No reasons to update on booth companys :S
    Reply
  • JTWrenn
    It's geekbench, who cares. It has never really reflected real world performance and is heavily....HEAVILY...arm favored. It just isn't a great way to tell anything about how this will actually perform anymore.

    Just a thought, if you need to end an article with
    "However, these results need to be taken with a grain of salt since these CPUs are possibly engineering or qualification samples that might not have the same clock speeds as their official production-ready counterpart"

    Maybe you should consider not reporting on it, or starting with that rather than putting it at the very end of the article. I will wait till I see real world performance numbers, I wish reporters would as well.
    Reply
  • tamalero
    Eximo said:
    Slow leak is the marketing of today. Why pay for marketing when people will do it for you?

    "One small portion of sodium chloride crystal"

    I suppose they could use words like skeptical.
    But gotta keep the word count high! XD
    Reply
  • emv
    Is there a timeline when these ultra 5 and 7 Arrow lakes will launch?
    Reply