Intel's P-core Core 9 273PQE 'Bartlett Lake' CPU beats 14900K by up to 9% in gaming tests — embedded-only chip is unofficially Intel's fastest gaming CPU (at 720p)

Bartlett Lake is one of Intel's most unique CPU lineups to date, featuring a P-core-only design based on Raptor Cove. But what caught everyone's attention was the flagship's 12 P-core configuration, featuring four more P-cores than any hybrid Intel CPU Intel has made so far. Discovered by PCGamesHardware, a German YouTuber put the flagship Core 9 273PQE Bartlett Lake chip to the test in a four-hour livestream and found it outperforms the Core i9-14900K in several games by up to 9%.

The YouTuber tested several games, including Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter Wilds, Rainbow Six Siege, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Counter-Strike 2, all at 720p, and Outcast 1.1 at 4K. In Horizon Zero Dawn, the 273PQE was 5% faster than the 14900K. In Monster Hunter Wilds, the 273PQE was 6% faster than the 14900K, and in Rainbow Six Siege the 273PQE was on par with the 14900K in performance. In Outcast, the 273PQE was 9% faster than the 14900K. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider the 273PQE was 9% faster than the 14900K, and in Counter-Strike 2, performance was on-par between the two chips.

14900K ist chancenlos? Intel Core 9 273 PQE im Test - Echte 12P-Kerne auf Sockel 1700 - YouTube

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The YouTuber's results reveal that Intel's latest embedded flagship could potentially be Intel's fastest gaming CPU to date. Technically, Intel has an even quicker Core i9-14900KS, but based on our Core i9-14900KS review, the halo part is not 10% faster than the 14900K. We would need to test the Core 9 273PQE ourselves to verify if Bartlett Lake truly has Intel's best CPU for gaming, but the YouTuber's benchmarks provide enough evidence to suggest it is possible.

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Intel's tile-based approach for the Arrow Lake architecture in the Core Ultra 200S series failed to improve gaming performance over its Raptor Lake predecessors in gaming. Intel was able to partially rectify this issue with the Core Ultra 200 Plus series by overclocking the chip's internal fabric, but even the new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is slightly behind the 14900K in our gaming CPU benchmark hierarchy.

Bartlett Lake, the codename for the Core 9 273PQE, is based on Intel's older Raptor Cove microarchitecture, which is also found in Intel's 13th and 14th-gen Raptor Lake CPUs. The chip comes with 12 P-cores, 24 threads, a 5.9GHz peak boost clock, and 36MB each of L2 and L3 cache. Bartlett Lake is an embedded solution aimed at mission-critical deployments, so sadly, it is not officially compatible with desktop LGA 1700 socket motherboards. That said, modders have gotten the 273PQE to work in a consumer LGA 1700 motherboard through BIOS mods.

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