Intel Core Ultra 9 285K: #1 in multi-threaded tasks even without HT

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in detail

A new CPU has taken the throne of absolute performance – the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. Yes, it’s a tight race, it’s with higher power consumption and lower efficiency, but that’s a necessary tax to pay for that “absolute peak”. Sure, someone will gladly sacrifice that leadership in favor of better operating characteristics, but either way, the 24-core CPU is the one that sets the pace in compute tasks on a mainstream platform. In this case, it’s Intel LGA 1851.

Conclusion

We can conclude that the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU came out of the tests as an absolute winner. That is, with a few caveats. The first is that this claim refers to speed under high load that scales well with all available CPU cores. In those cases, the Intel processor usually outperforms even the competing Ryzen 9 9950X in speed.

Of course, that 2% difference is very small, and gets swayed even by testing on a different motherboard, or on the same motherboard with the memory controller settings changed. And there are more of those details that could turn this result to Intel’s disadvantage.

What clearly plays in AMD’s favour at high load is the higher efficiency. The latter increases with the Core Ultra 9 with lighter workloads, and in games, for example, the Intel processor is already more efficient. On average in our gaming tests, the Core Ultra 9 285K is 15% more efficient than the Ryzen 9 9950X, and it also has an edge over the Ryzen 9 9900X. The difference from the Core i9-14900K is already quite large, and the Core Ultra 9 (285K) has a 27-percent lead. Of course, this can vary from title to title, and you’ll probably run into situations where, at comparable gaming performance, the CU9 285K will consume more power, resulting in less attractive efficiency. However, we have only seen the opposite cases in our tests.

The Core Ultra 9 285K can be considered a versatile processor that is well suited for gaming builds in addition to very high multi-threaded performance. Especially in high-end configurations with a powerful graphics card, where a high-resolution monitor is often included. In such an environment, the impact of processors is minimal, and the Core Ultra 9 is just about the most attractive thing you can buy, regardless of price.

Perhaps only AMD processors with 3D-V Cache are a more attractive option for gaming setups (Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D), which primarily consume less power in games. But then again, they don’t have as high multi-threaded performance as the CU7 285K. Hence the point about versatility. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is a processor that appears to be suitable for both a workstation and a gaming PC.

It’s true that the cooling situation is already more complicated, especially at heavy MT load and for those 300 W you need a more powerful (and thus more expensive) cooler. In a heavy single-threaded workload, you can get by with an average cooler, though still, the more powerful the better. In any case, the Core Ultra 9 285K’s temperatures are lower than those of the Core i9-14900K, even at higher ST performance. The latter is again at the very top, ahead of the Ryzen 9 9950X. Here, even at lower power consumption and for the standards of high-end processors, the power efficiency of the CU9 285K in ST loads is really high. The relatively lower temperature, in addition to the lower power consumption, can probably be partly attributed to the core rearrangement, where the P cores are interleaved with the E cores instead of being concentrated into one coherent block, as is the case with the Core i9-14900K, for example.

So again, the Core Ultra 9 285K is a versatile, high-end processor that can have higher power consumption and require more intensive cooling in MT workloads. However, you can always tighten the power limits to help you in this situation. How the efficiency of the CU9 285K will fare at lower power compared to that of the R9 9950X will be the subject of our further testing, which you can look forward to. For now, then, just to say that yes, if you want the all-round “best” when it comes to usage across a variety of scenarios, the Core Ultra 9 285K processor makes a lot of sense.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

* The price quoted may not correspond to the current market price. With all processors (AMD and Intel) we always work off of the MSRP.

We would like to thank the Datacomp e-shop for their cooperation in providing the tested hardware

Special thanks also to Blackmagic Design (for DaVinci Resolve Studio license), Topaz Labs (for licenses to DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI) and Zoner (for Photo Studio X license)

• Contents
• Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in detail
• Methodology: performance tests
• Methodology: how we measure power draw
• Methodology: temperature and clock speed tests
• Test setup
• 3DMark
• Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
• Borderlands 3
• Counter-Strike: GO
• Cyberpunk 2077
• DOOM Eternal
• F1 2020
• Metro Exodus
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Total War Saga: Troy
• Overall gaming performance
• Gaming performance per euro
• PCMark and Geekbench
• Web performance
• 3D rendering: Cinebench, Blender, ...
• Video 1/2: Adobe Premiere Pro
• Video 2/2: DaVinci Resolve Studio
• Visual effects: Adobe After Effects
• Video encoding
• Audio encoding
• Broadcasting (OBS and Xsplit)
• Photos 1/2: Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
• Photos 2/2: Affinity Photo, Topaz Labs AI Apps, ZPS X, ...
• (De)compression
• (De)encryption
• Numerical computing
• Simulations
• Memory and cache tests
• Processor power draw curve
• Average processor power draw
• Performance per watt
• Achieved CPU clock speed
• CPU temperature
• Conclusion