Intel's Arrow Lake flagship takes single-threaded performance crown over AMD and Apple, now leads PassMark benchmark

PassMark software has highlighted a new entry in its CPU Mark single-threaded performance rankings. In a Tweet shared this weekend it embedded a chart showing Intel’s upcoming Core Ultra 9 285K processor (an Arrow Lake-S desktop part) is the new single-core leader in the eponymous benchmark. The firm admits that the tested sample “might be a pre-release engineering sample, but results are looking good.”

PassMark’s assessment seems reasonable, as the Core Ultra 9 285K confidently noses ahead of some of the best CPUs available to consumers, like the Intel Core i9-14900KS, and a host of Apple M3 variants. It is even further ahead of chips like the Core i9-13900K and AMD’s best-placed Ryzen 9 9950X. Expand the embedded Tweet to see the full chart.

The above is great news in the single-core stakes for Intel 'team blue' fans, but multi-core results found on PassMark’s website aren’t as stellar. The upcoming Arrow Lake-S CPU has a score of 46,872 in PassMark’s multi-threaded tests. That’s a score that nestles snugly between the Core i9-13900 and the i7-13700K CPUs. For further context, the aforementioned 14900KS scores 62,502 in this benchmark. The new top-end desktop chip looks rather anemic if it intends to step into the Raptor Lake Refresh part’s shoes.

In an interesting coincidence, Twitter’s momomo_us uncovered an HP Omen 35L gaming desktop listing this weekend (Tweet embedded above).  According to the screenshot, it features the aforementioned Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at its heart. The listing confirms and highlights the CPU specs, and boasts that it offers up to 5.70 GHz turbo boost, 36MB of cache, and 24 cores with 24 threads. We assume that the dire PassMark multi-threaded result vs the 14900KS may be largely due to the thread deficit – with the Arrow Lake only having 24 threads, vs the Raptor Lake Refresh with its 24C/32T configuration.

Concerning the poor multi-threaded performance shown here, we also have to bear in mind that this is a sample of one, and it has been flagged as an engineering sample. Furthermore, there may be motherboard / BIOS plus tuning to be done – as well as other tweaks – before Arrow Lake systems are ready for prime time.

Arrow Lake-S isn’t a long way off, though. The new LGA 1851 processors and 800 series motherboards like top-end Z890 products should be with us later this month.