Intel has introduced its new Core Ultra 200S Plus series processors, which the company says deliver its fastest gaming performance so far. The new lineup includes two processors that Intel claims offer up to 15 percent higher average gaming performance compared with the current Core Ultra 2 series chips.
The launch comes at a time when upgrading gaming PCs has become more expensive due to rising prices of components such as RAM, SSDs, and graphics cards. Intel says the new processors are designed to provide a performance upgrade while remaining relatively affordable.
The lineup includes the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, priced at $200, and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, priced at $300.
Both processors bring improvements over the earlier 245K and 265K models, mainly through additional efficiency cores. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus features a configuration of 6 performance cores and 12 efficiency cores, while the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus includes 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores. Earlier models offered 6 performance cores with 8 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores with 12 efficiency cores.
Intel says the extra cores help improve performance in multi-threaded tasks. According to the company, the 250K Plus can deliver up to twice the multi-threaded performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X in content creation workloads such as Blender rendering and Cinebench testing. The Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor launched in 2024 with a price of $280.
While the core frequencies remain similar to the previous non-Plus models, Intel has improved other internal components. Memory interconnect speeds have been increased by 900 MHz, which the company says helps reduce latency.
The new processors also support faster DDR5 memory. Previous models supported speeds up to 6400 MT/s, while the new Plus processors support up to 7200 MT/s and up to 8000 MT/s when the Boost BIOS profile is enabled.
Along with the processors, Intel has introduced a new Binary Optimization Tool. This software analyzes game code and optimizes it to run more efficiently on Intel processors, similar to how graphics driver updates improve performance for specific games. Intel plans to release software updates over time to improve performance for individual titles.
The Core Ultra 200S Plus processors are compatible with existing motherboards that use Intel’s 800 series chipset. Intel also confirmed that new motherboards are being developed that will support 4 Rank CUDIMM memory modules capable of storing up to 128GB each, allowing systems to reach up to 256GB of RAM with two modules.
The company said the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus will be available starting March 26, with pre-built PCs using these processors launching at the same time. Review samples have already been sent to media outlets, and early reviews are expected to appear shortly before the official release.
Intel also indicated that more Plus models may be introduced in the future as part of its plan to offer higher-performance versions of each processor generation without requiring users to change their motherboards.
