Comprehensive Intel Core Ultra 9 Review

In 2024, it is expected that Intel will release its brand-new processor – Intel Core Ultra 9. This is a much anticipated product that is worthy of special attention. In this review, we will assess this new appliance from top to bottom by highlighting the purposes for which it suits perfectly, its advantages, disadvantages, pricing, and many more. 

Advantages & Disadvantages

The latest Intel processor has multiple benefits but some minor drawbacks as well. 

Intel Core Ultra 9 Review

In 2024, Intel announced its most recent release with plenty of integrated advancements – Intel Core Ultra 9 285k. This one headlines the upgraded “Arrow Lake” series. How is it bolstered? The tech giant has designed a brand-new chipset architecture that contains plenty of cutting-edge tech advancements, including DDR5 CUDIMM memory tech and the first AI engine, to mention a few. This architecture encourages 24 cores to operate even more effectively. These advancements make the brand-new Core Ultra 9 probably one of the most effective options for work. Unfortunately, it is not the right fit for gaming at the moment. 

However, Intel has also designed this Arrow Lake processor so it could provide 150W decrease in system power during gaming, for instance. The threaded horsepower is claimed to be increased by extra 20% while the single-thread performance has been increased up to 5% at least. The latest Intel processor was actually a big hope in the market.

Despite all of the possible drawbacks during the operation, Intel uses a wide range of TSMC nodes for various chipsets. These are called “tiles” in the Arrow Lake design. The company not only manages to take the best from its competitors but also joins multiple, not less effective, process nodes with a totally new core design. It intersperses E-core clusters among other P-cores. The new design also envisages the refusal of Hyper-Threading. These changes, in conjunction, likely will lead to less energy consumption and better efficiency, while the PC is expected to operate less noisy with Intel Ultra 9.

It is also worth drawing special attention to the supposed performance of applications when running with Intel Ultra 9 285k. It is significantly bolstered. The Lion Cove architecture applied for this new tech advancement has improved the general performance of the apps. After looking at the separate Intel Core Ultra 9 285k benchmarks, it becomes obvious that the Arrow Lake processor is not as effective as some of the examples that Intel’s competitors have introduced. The supposed reason is the improper scheduling of threads. 

The interesting fact is that Intel Ultra 9 somehow manages to handle heavy workloads but fails to achieve the same great results when handling light and medium loads. The reason may be the very effective AI integration. Overall, the architecture manages to cope with the heavy loads even without Hyper-Threading. Intel Core Ultra 9 laptop appears to be the most powerful in this context.

The Intel Ultra debut pcs has appeared in October already. Before trying this latest advancement on your own, scrutinize its specifications in detail. We have synthesized multiple Ultra 9 reviews to give you the most essential information about the new development. Let’s start with its tech characteristics first. 

Technical Specs Intel Core Ultra 9

Let’s also dig into the technical details of the brand-new Intel Core Ultra 9 285k.

The major technical characteristic of the newest Intel processor is a combination of two architectures. One of them is aimed at optimizing PC performance and ensuring high efficiency. Another one is targeted at making energy consumption effective as well. The Raptor Lake design has been significantly bolstered by Intel towards the innovative Arrow Lake design. The latter model is deemed to be among the most effective ones, especially for working people. However, its performance in gaming is associated with several bugs that make the Arrow Lake processor not a good choice for this purpose. Intel Core Ultra 9 is a good step towards ensuring the same efficiency of performance both for work and slightly for gaming.

The Design: TSMC Nodes Come To Intel

This may be probably not a very interesting part of our review, however, it can’t be skipped. Knowing what is inside and outside the newest Intel processor is a must-have point for making a conscious choice that suits your needs best. Let’s cover the most important points.

One of the noteworthy, even revolutionary, changes in this brand-new thing is the switch to chipset designs. The latter tools existed for decades; however, they were underestimated a bit. They gained far more popularity only within the last year after AMD integrated one of this kind into its Ryzen processors. Intel discussed the opportunity of the same switch a long time ago. However, it managed to do this only recently because of the race with its competitors and their latest advancements. It is worth noting that Intel has managed to make this integration far deeper and more effective, surpassing its competitors in terms of performance. Here is how it has been achieved.

The vast majority of ADM’s processors are based on the less complex chiplet design that Intel has integrated in the most of its recent developments. And the elements are integrated in not the most effective way, frankly – they are joined through the underlying package, however, they lack physical connection with each other. 

Intel Ultra has followed a different and more advanced approach. It has placed all of the elements inside the processor close to each other on the base title using the 3D packaging technology. This approach secures the processor from latency and minimizes possible drawbacks during its performance. In addition, it also allows for a drop in the costs of production. And what is also good is that this is not the last advancement on the list of achievements.

Thanks to the internal optimization of Intel Core Ultra 9, the manufacturer has also managed to extend and enhance the branch-prediction and scheduling of the brand-new processor. Its execution software has also been significantly reworked and bolstered to ensure a greater throughput. However, this is not the final advancement worth highlighting.

The E-cores integrated into this brand-new processor use the advanced architecture called “Skymont.” It ensures a wider design with more options for allocation and hardware retirement, managing to guarantee deeper instructional queuing and much-enhanced parallelism as well. Even more, the bandwidth between the cores has almost doubled compared to the previous generation with the purpose of bolstering performance in this way. 

And finally, this processor is among the first ones produced by Intel that contains dedicated AI hardware. Thanks to all of the integrated innovations, the brand-new Intel processor can ensure greater performance per watt. Just imagine – the neural processing unit (NPU)  manages to process up to 17 trillion INT8 operations every second! That’s quite impressive, isn’t it? This aspect is among the major ones, making the new Intel processor a perfect one for heavy workloads and the same apps.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Pricing

As it has been stated officially by Intel, it is going to sell the innovative processor at roughly $590, 589 to be maximally precise. Let’s make a quick comparison of the latest Intel processor and other similar models of competitors available in the market. We will range them from the most to less expensive.

Intel Core Ultra 9 Memory Support Matrix and CUDIMMs

Arrow Lake is good since it supports up to 192GB of DDR5 memory. However, there are variations here. The chips support the latest type of DIMM with a clock driver integrated into the chip – this is DDR5-6400 with DDR5 CUDIMMs. Such an approach significantly bolsters the stable clock frequencies by enhancing the signal. In this simple yet effective way, the approach stabilizes the data eye. Compared to clock redrivers, the CUDIMMs don’t create an extra latency cycle since they use much simpler and cheaper architecture. 

Intel also emphasizes that the overclocking headroom with CUDIMMs is much higher and considers DDR5-8000 to be a kind of balanced option. CUDIMMs can make the final products far less expensive, ensuring the designs are simpler at the same time. When it is not overloaded, it is capable of ensuring higher efficiency. 

This latest Intel Core Ultra 9 development also has the standard DDR5 that operates at a lower base speed compared to the CUDIMMs. However, both types of memories can be significantly bolstered further, of course.

Let’s delve into details related to the Arrow Lake DDR5 support matrix.

Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S Architecture

Let’s scrutinize the Arrow Lake architecture of Intel Ultra 9. This is the first major step that Intel has made toward the disaggregated model of architecture. It envisages the split between the computing and input/output functions. These two major functionalities are placed on different dies. According to Intel, this chip has upgraded and optimized packaging, ensuring the parallel connections between the separate units of the single chip. If we compare it with the standard packaging, it utilizes a serial interface, which is far less productive and much less energy efficient. 

It is fair to say that the most innovative design is claimed to be the Lunar Lake design. Unlike this one, Arrow Lake Design envisages a model similar to the five-tile Meteor Lake processors, which were the previous generation. However, Intel has significantly bolstered this Meteor Lake design by integrating, instead of its outdated architectural elements, the new ones – Skymont E-core microarchitecture in the first turn. Seems that the comparison of the Arrow Lake and the previous Meteor Lake architectural designs is much desired at this point.

Intel indicates that the chip with a total die area of 243 mm² has over 17.5 billion transistors! The company has also implemented another solution. The PHY and the memory controller have been separated and placed into two tiles. This has been made in order to bolster the overall efficiency of the brand-new processor. This advancement has a very positive impact on computing. However, it also adversely impacts gaming productivity. The memory latency is, unfortunately, another aspect that makes Intel Ultra 9 not very suitable for gaming experiences. 

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