Intel’s Core Ultra 5 225F is at an all-time low $170, making Arrow Lake more affordable ahead of Amazon's Prime Day sale

Core Ultra 2 225
(Image credit: Amazon)

Intel’s entry-level desktop processor from the latest Arrow Lake lineup has dropped to its lowest price yet of under $170 on Amazon. The Core Ultra 5 225F originally launched at a recommended price range of $221-$231, before witnessing a price cut to $194.32 back in July. With this latest discount, customers are saving roughly $50 to $60, or better than 25% off the original launch price, making it one of the best deals on Intel’s new-generation CPUs.

The Core Ultra 5 225F is essentially the non-integrated GPU variant of the Core Ultra 5 225, which means that users will require a dedicated graphics card, not just for performance but to actually see anything. The processor comes with 10-cores and 10-threads, with six E-cores and four E-cores. With a 4.9 GHz boost clock speed and a 65W PBP (Processor Base Power), the CPU offers performance that is identical to the Core Ultra 5 225.

Intel Core Ultra 5 225F
Save 27% ($61.57)
Intel Core Ultra 5 225F: was $231 now $169.43 at Amazon

All-time low price

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225F desktop processor comes with a 10-core configuration, six performance cores and four efficiency cores, and 22MB cache. It doesn't come with any integrated graphics, so you'll need a discrete GPU in order to make this one work.


The CPU supports up to 256 GB of DDR5 6400 MT/s memory, and features a dedicated NPU (Neural Processing Unit) that is capable of up to 13 TOPS (Int8) of performance. It also offers full support for PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 devices with a maximum of 24 PCIe lanes, depending on the motherboard it is paired with. Speaking of which, Intel’s Core Ultra 200S processors, require an Intel 800-series motherboard which includes Z890, B860, and H810.

At its current price, the Core Ultra 5 225F should be an obvious choice for anyone who is planning to build a new PC on a nominal budget. While AMD does offer some competition in the entry-segment with its latest Ryzen 5 9600X, it only offers a total of six cores and is currently selling at a more expensive price of $199 on Amazon.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

Kunal Khullar
News Contributor

Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware.  He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.