Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus Content Creation Review

3 days ago

Intel announced a refresh to its Core Ultra 200S product line, introducing the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus.
The refresh focuses on lower-end SKUs, increasing E-cores by four, boosting E-core max speed by 100 MHz, and raising memory speeds from 6400 to 7200.
The 270K Plus is priced at $300, offering similar performance to the $580 285K, making it a cost-effective alternative.
Intel addressed memory-latency issues by increasing the die-to-die interconnect speed from 2.1 to 3 GHz.
The new CPUs are drop-in replacements for current Arrow Lake CPUs, but may appeal more to users migrating from older platforms.
Intel introduced new software packages like iPPP for simplified driver installation and iBOT for game optimization.
In benchmarks, the 270K Plus outperformed the 285K in Lightroom Classic by 4% and the 9700X by 23%.
For Photoshop, AMD Ryzen processors still lead, with the 9850X3D being 21% faster than the 270K Plus.
In Premiere and DaVinci Resolve, the 270K Plus offered top-tier performance, especially for users without RTX 50 Series GPUs.
For CPU rendering tasks, the 270K Plus came close to the 9950X3D, offering great performance per dollar.
Intel's new CPUs excel in professional workflows, often outperforming similarly priced AMD options.

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