It has been known for some time that Intel is planning to launch its Arrow Lake Refresh lineup in the form of Core Ultra 200K Plus series, but there seems to be a change of plans according to Videocardz’s sources. Originally intended to launch with three SKUs, the top-tier Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is reportedly on the chopping block, leaving two still marching ahead for launch.
Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus Gets Cut
The supposed lineup of Core Ultra 200K Plus include the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, and the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus. The upgrades over non-Plus models include improved clock speeds, more cores, and faster memory support. Despite that the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus was already spotted in a Geekbench entry, Videocardz cited two sources that Intel has scrapped plans for this model’s launch as it shifts toward “performance-per-value.”
More specifically, sources told Videocardz that the issue came down to product stack overlap, as the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus would’ve been one of the three models with the same 24-core (8P+16E) core configuration. Given that the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is bringing the core count up to 24 cores from the 20 cores (8P+12E) of the Core Ultra 7 265K, it makes little sense to let the 290K Plus exist, as it is effectively just an overclocked version of the 270K Plus.
Is it a valid excuse? Maybe, and perhaps the memory pricing situation has made the PC community so wary of high prices to the point that it may be better off to market these chips as value-focused offerings instead, especially against the superior AMD Ryzen 9000X3D processors where Arrow Lake has little chance to compete on outright performance. As a side note, the other two Plus models will likely launch on late March based on a leak that revealed the review embargo date.
Pokdepinion: A bit of a segmentation mistake I guess. Still, wouldn’t hurt to have it still exist, since it still gets improved memory support.
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