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The Core Ultra 5 225 is too expensive to justify, falling short on all counts against the Ryzen 5 9600X for the same price. With a slight cut, however, it becomes much more compelling, as recent budget CPUs below $150 have largely dried up.
Reasons to buy
+
Highly efficient
+
Solid single-threaded performance
+
Easy to keep cool
Reasons to avoid
-
Slower than the last-gen Ryzen 5 7600X in games
-
Slower than the Ryzen 5 9600X in multithreaded applications
-
Too expensive for the performance
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It’s easy to write off Intel’s original Arrow Lake range, especially now that we’ve seen Arrow Lake Refresh chips in action, both of which have earned spots among the best CPUs for gaming. Although the main range of Arrow Lake CPUs got a lot of attention — for worse more than better — one chip slipped through the cracks: Intel’s budget-oriented Core Ultra 5 225.
Typically, this is an important class of CPU for Intel. Although the lower-specced Core Ultra 5 ranks lower in our CPU benchmark hierarchy for any given generation, this class has traditionally represented the best bang-for-your-buck when it comes to gaming performance. The Core i5-12400 was our go-to recommendation for the best budget CPU, as were the Core i5-13400 and 14400, which offer largely similar performance. The Core Ultra 5 225, on the other hand, never fit that mold.
It’s fallen even more out of favor in the face of Arrow Lake Refresh, as well. At the time of writing, the Core Ultra 5 225 will run you about $180. For around $220, you can pick up the new Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, which is leaps and bounds faster in both application and gaming performance. With a price cut, however, the Core Ultra 5 225 could be a compelling CPU, especially considering the current state of budget offerings.
There aren’t a ton of options in the $100 to $150 price bracket right now. AMD has the Ryzen 5 5600 and Ryzen 5 8400F, and Intel has the Core i5-12400F and Core i3-14100F. The long-rumored Core Ultra 3 205 never managed to make its way to the market, and it’s looking increasingly likely that it never will. There’s a gap here, and a gap that the Core Ultra 5 225 would fit wonderfully if only it were a bit cheaper.
As it stands now, the Core Ultra 5 225 competes well against AMD’s Ryzen 5 9600X and 7600X in applications, but it’s about a generation behind in gaming performance. The elephant in the room is the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, however, which offers a much better value on both fronts.
We’re still going to look at the Core Ultra 5 225’s performance across our full test suite, including application, gaming, and power testing. Hopefully, we’ll see a price cut on the Core Ultra 5 225 so it can occupy a space in the market that’s largely been ignored by AMD and Intel over the past couple of years.
The Core Ultra 5 225 is the lowest-specced chip in Intel’s Arrow Lake range that you can actually buy. There have been rumors (and even one full review) of the Core Ultra 3 205, but it’s never actually been available for sale outside of a few retailer placeholder listings. The 225 shares DNA with the other Core Ultra 5 CPUs in the stack, sporting the same six Lion Cove P-cores as the 245K and 250K Plus, but a cut down to just four Skymont E-cores.
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It also comes with a severe cut to clock speeds, with a 3.3 GHz base clock, a maximum 4.9 GHz boost, and a cut to power, with just a 65W TDP. The Core Ultra 5 225 would likely be able to climb toward that 245K level of performance with boosted clocks and unlocked power limits, but unfortunately, you can’t overclock the chip. Intel doesn’t offer a K-series version of the 225, instead just offering an F-series variant without integrated graphics for about $15 to $20 less.
As with all Arrow Lake CPUs, the Core Ultra 5 225 doesn’t support Hyperthreading, so the 10 cores give you access to a total of 10 threads. Each Arrow Lake CPU has 3 MB of L2 cache per P-core, as well as 4 MB of cache shared for each E-core cluster, which comprises four cores. The Core Ultra 5 225 is hit on both fronts for cache, not only sporting less L2 due to having fewer cores, but also only 20 MB of L3, compared to 24 MB on the 245K and 30 MB on the 250K Plus.
Although the Core Ultra 5 225 has lower cache than its Arrow Lake counterparts, it’s still a big boost over the Raptor Lake chips it replaces. The Core i5-14400, for instance, comes with just 29.5 MB of total cache, with the same 20 MB of L3 but only 9.5 MB for L2 on the cores, despite sporting the same 6 + 4 core layout. It’s closer to something like the Ryzen 5 9600X, though with a fairly even split between L2 and L3; AMD heavily favors a large L3 over more L2 on the cores.
Outside of the hardware, the Core Ultra 5 225 can leverage Intel’s Application Optimization, but not the new iBOT feature available to Arrow Lake Refresh chips. More importantly, it can’t leverage Core Ultra 200S Boost. Arrow Lake Refresh saw a sizable performance improvement from die-to-die frequency boosts, which are available through 200S Boost for other unlocked Arrow Lake offerings. Unfortunately, here, you don’t have that option.
No one is buying the 225 except businesses when the 250k plus retails for $220 and the 250kf for $200. If you want budget gaming cheaper, 14th gen is capable and then you can select DDR4 as well. For a DDR5 platform, 250k plus is the best you can find from Intel.
For the roughly $50 difference between the 225 and the 250KF, the 225 just feels pointless. Even if retailers dropped it to around $100, DDR5 pricing still kills a lot of the value. At that point, something like a 14400 with DDR4 is the more cost effective and practical solution for most people.
If DDR5 pricing ever returns to sanity, say 32GB kits under $100 again, then I could see Intel adjusting pricing to make these chips more viable and appealing. I wouldn’t hold my breath though on DDR5 returning to "normal" anytime soon.
You don't really need all the cores for anything the main sell is the newer architecture of the xe cores and you get the stock cooler.
Losing half the iGPU is a big loss. Performance should be about on par with any fully enabled Xe-LP iGPU, like the UHD 750 in an old i5-11500. Architectural improvements are barely relevant. Arrow Lake desktop gets Xe-LPG with DPAS instructions disabled. You get better AV1 decode and AV1 encode in Arrow Lake.
Stock cooler isn't going to have a big effect on value. I say go to something older/used, or step up to the Core Ultra 245K/250K+.
