Intel's Core Ultra 7 265K drops to $300 across various retailers

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

In a bid to improve Arrow Lake sales, Intel has significantly discounted its mainstream 20-core Core Ultra 7 265K, which is readily selling at or below $300 at various retailers, including Amazon. That's a massive 25% cut over its original $400 recommended customer price set by Intel at launch. While the slightly more affordable 14-core Core Ultra 5 245K is also selling below its MSRP at $269, the Core Ultra 7 265K is arguably the better buy.

This is likely part of a small promotional sale, which is why we're using the term discount instead of permanent price cuts. Even so, they don't appear to be regional, as reports from ComputerBase indicate similar pricing trends in Germany. Intel's candidate is a great choice for promoting Arrow Lake sales, since the Core Ultra 7 265K wields an impressive 20 (8P+12E) core / 20 thread configuration, rivaling the i7-14700K from the previous generation, while offering better efficiency.

The CPU carries 66MB of total cache (36MB L2 + 30MB L3). Sticking to JEDEC-compliant speeds, Arrow Lake at stock can handle 6400 MT/s DDR5 kits (CUDIMM), going as fast as 8000 MT/s with Intel's warrantied boost profiles. As of writing, the Core Ultra 7 265K (and its KF variant) can be purchased for $294 at Amazon. The model with the integrated GPU is a no-brainer, given that its built-in Xe-LPG (Alchemist) iGPU offers QuickSync functionality with AV1 encoding.

Core Ultra 7 265K PCPartPicker — (Image credit: PCPartPicker)

The elephant in the room is platform cost. The LGA 1851 platform still carries a costly entry point, and Intel hasn't guaranteed support for future CPU generations on this socket. Budget-conscious consumers might find AMD's AM5 a better alternative, which has been promised support until 2027, suggesting possible compatibility with its future Zen 6 CPUs.

While there are whispers of a potential Arrow Lake refresh, it is likely to be similar in scope to the Raptor Lake refresh (14th Generation), so improvements will likely be modest at best. Intel's next major CPU generation, codenamed Nova Lake, is slated for a 2026 launch. Nova Lake might not be a drop-in replacement for the existing LGA1851 platform, as it is rumored to require new motherboards, switching to the LGA1954 socket.

Beyond these drawbacks, let's not forget that Arrow Lake gaming performance still crawls behind AMD's best offerings, possibly due to architectural limitations. If you're on LGA 1700, consider waiting for Intel's P-core-only Bartlett Lake solutions, which are rumored for a Q3 2025 reveal. The aim isn't to dissuade you from this purchase, but to make sure you're fully aware of the limitations these CPUs carry. Arrow Lake is still a design marvel, combining tile-based 3D packaging and a leading 3nm process node from TSMC. However, the execution fell short of expectations.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.

See more CPUs News

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

More about cpus

Nvidia and MediaTek may unveil jointly developed 'N1' Arm chips for Windows PCs at Computex

Arrow Lake die shot shows off the details of Intel's chiplet-based design

Intel officially cuts Core Ultra 7 200-series desktop CPU prices by up to 25%

See more latest

3 Comments Comment from the forums

cyrusfox

Out of the Arrow Lake Desktop lineup, this seems to be the best bang for the buck, 8P/12e, Very tempting. Much better performance than launch with most bugs out of it, still a bit of latency penalty with the chiplet design, not as good as X3D on games(or compared to Raptor lake on a lot of titles). But productivity task it seems to do great and a lot more efficient than Raptor. It would be replacing my 13900. I would finally need to pick up get some DDR5(thinking 38gb, 64gb is overkill for my workload but 32 isn't enough). But if I pull the trigger I will need to do a water build as I have a 2080ti with WB sitting in a drawer waiting to be added. I would need to figure out case and cooling for a custom loop which I haven't done for 8 years now...

I think the biggest issue is these capable laptops eliminate the need or even the desire for a desktop dedicated PC. With Lunar lake(258V), I only am annoyed by the performance when I am encoding which is like a once a month occurrence, otherwise there seems to be enough mobile performance to eliminate desktop usage. The sole place I long for more performance is on my work devices... locked in with IT garbage that is 3-4 years old and it feels like I am using a computer from 20 years ago, so laggy.
Reply
ohio_buckeye

That’s a pretty good price. They may need to consider doing what AMD did with the fx line which was to discount the CPUs enough to where they sold better. If they do enough of this perhaps Intel can get back towards being more competitive.
Reply
artk2219

That should move some units, Arrow lake still works wonderfully for productivity tasks, its mainly just the gaming performance that lacking. My biggest issue with it is the fact that they've basically discontinued it since their next refresh will likely be on a completely different socket. Meaning they've put themselves in the position where if gaming is your thing, LGA 1700 or AM5 are better choices. If you're already on AM5 or LGA 1700 its not worth moving platforms over, and if you're going to be upgrading in the future, you may as well wait for when they replace the socket with Nova Lake.
Reply

Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter