Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Ultra 5 250K Plus: Everything You Need to Know

Intel’s newest, most powerful gaming CPUs are available very soon. Known as the “Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus” CPUs, these function as a refresh of the Arrow Lake CPUs we saw in 2024 with the Ultra 9 285K and Ultra 7 265K.

The New CPUs, the Ultra 7 270K Plus and the Ultra 5 250K Plus look like they’re aimed to compete not with AMD’s flagships, (AMD’s proprietary X3D Cache still rules the roost when it comes to gaming) but with their CPUs in the $200 – $300 price range. So that’s the news, but what about the details.

You can see the specs of the 270K Plus and the 250K Plus compared below. You can see the full Core Ultra 270K Plus and Core Ultra 250K Plus Specs on Intel's website

We’ve added the 285K and 265K for some context. This allows you to see that the new 270K and 250K Plus CPUs aren’t blowing anyone’s socks off when it comes to raw specs, but the performance and more importantly the price will apparently make the difference.

It is also worth mentioning here that these new CPUs will be able to handle memory up to 7200MT/s, whereas the non-Plus Core Ultra CPUs maxxed out at 6400 MT/s.

The Intel Core ultra 270K Plus and 250K Plus will release on March 26th 2026, almost 16 months since the Core Series 2 CPUs.

• Core Ultra 7 270K Plus: $299
• Core Ultra 5 250K Plus: $199
• Core Ultra 7 265K: $394
• Core Ultra 9 285K: $589

We’ve added in the 285K and 265K again for some context. Of course, those are the launch prices for those CPUs, but nowadays, they can be found for cheaper. This might make a difference to your buying decision if these are the CPUs you’re choosing between.

These new CPUs will be compatible with existing LGA 1851 Socket Motherboards running 800-Series Chipsets. (A Bios update will probably be necessary first)

As of right now, we only have Intel’s internal testing to look at, which is not the most impartial source, but it can give us an idea of what to expect. Across the games that Intel tested, the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is up to an average of 17% faster than the Core Ultra 7 265K. Of course, a test suite of six games doesn’t tell us everything.

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus looks like it performs up to an average of 13% better than the Ultra 5 245K. Again, only across six games, some of which are curiously different to the ones used for the 270K Plus.

The more impressive part is the appearance of a 2x improvement in multithread performance against AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X. The numbers are impressive, though the 9700X and 9600X aren't AMD's most powerful CPUs, so don't go thinking Intel has produced a slam dunk. AMD is still ahead when it comes to gaming - if you have that kind of money.

Regardless, Intel’s performance claims aren’t super detailed, especially when we don’t really know the conditions for the testing, though intel did include the full specs of the test bench they were running, which included an iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RX RGB and our RM1200e and RM1200x PSUs. Not to brag or anything.

According to Intel’s slides, “Plus” is an additional suffix to their naming scheme that indicates that the product is aimed at the enthusiast crowd. More specifically, this means “Architecture and process refinements”, “More performance for an existing platform”, and “The ultimate expressions of a new architectural generation”.

This essentially boils down to Intel saying that these new CPUs are using the same LGA 1851 socket and 800-series chipsets. And that they’ve made the processes more cost-effective and the architectures more efficient, hence the strong price to performance ratio.