Intel Arrow Lake Refresh coming soon
Fortunately or not, Intel is following its plans to launch new SKUs for its desktop platforms.
A new Geekbench entry shows the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus , one of the Arrow Lake Refresh desktop parts that did not show up in CES 2026 announcements. If the naming holds, this is part of a “Plus” update for the LGA-1851 platform. Perhaps the last one that we know of.
The listing shows the chip running on a Gigabyte Z890 AORUS TACHYON ICE motherboard under Windows 11 Pro, with 48 GB of DDR5-8000 memory. Geekbench reports a 24-core configuration split into two clusters (8 and 16), which matches the core count seen on the Core Ultra 9 285K. The maximum frequency is listed at 5.8 GHz, aligning with prior rumors that the 290K Plus focuses on slightly higher boost clocks rather than a core-count change.
Source: Geekbench
In this run, the 290K Plus scores 3456 in single-core and 24610 in multi-core. For comparison, the 285K score provided is 3202 single-core and 22580 multi-core, putting the 290K Plus about 7.9% higher in single-core and about 9.0% higher in multi-core, based on these results. Keep in mind this is not apples-to-apples, we are using official ranking data and comparing it to the single available score for 290K+.
It’s worth adding that we already saw Ultra 7 270K Plus in a similar leak, which scored at 3235 single-core and 21368 multi-core. Two SKUs in the refresh, 290K Plus, 270K Plus, share the same 24-core layout that already matches the 285K. If so, the split between models may come down to clocks, power limits, and tuning rather than new silicon. Intel did mention support for higher memory frequency out of the box , but as we mentioned, this is not official as such, since Intel did not announce it yet, just listed it on their website.
There is still no clear timing for an announcement, and CES skipping the lineup remains the odd part. After 9850X3D, perhaps?
| Arrow Lake vs Arrow Lake Refresh | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz.com | Ultra 9 290K Plus🆕 | Ultra 9 285K | Ultra 7 270K Plus🆕 | Ultra 7 265K | Ultra 5 250K Plus🆕 | Ultra 5 245K |
| Cores (P+E) | 8P+16E | 8P+16E | 8P+16E | 8P+12E | 6P+12E | 6P+8E |
| TVB | 5.8 GHz | 5.7 GHz | – | – | – | – |
| Turbo Boost Max | 5.6 GHz | 5.6 GHz | 5.5 GHz | 5.5 GHz | – | – |
| P-Core Turbo | 5.6 GHz | 5.5 GHz | 5.4 GHz | 5.4 GHz | 5.3 GHz | 5.2 GHz |
| E-Core Turbo | 4.8 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 4.7 GHz | 4.6 GHz | 4.7 GHz | 4.6 GHz |
| P-Core Base | 3.7 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 3.9 GHz | 4.2 GHz | 4.2 GHz |
| E-Core Base | 3.2 GHz | 3.2 GHz | 3.2 GHz | 3.3 GHz | 3.5 GHz | 3.6 GHz |
| Memory Support | DDR5-7200 | DDR5-6400 | DDR5-7200 | DDR5-6400 | DDR5-7200 | DDR5-6400 |
| Base Power | 125 W | 125 W | 125 W | 125 W | 125 W | 125 W |
| Max Turbo Power | 250 W | 250 W | 250 W | 250 W | 159 W | 159 W |
Source: Geekbench
