Intel Core Ultra 5 225F: Reddit's Verdict on Arrow Lake's Budget Chip

225F is 160€ in Italy, and for 180€ you can get a 245K that absolutely smokes it. It makes no sense at all to buy this, unless it's even cheaper.

TLDW: 12 Game Average. 1080P Medium: Intel Core Ultra 225F is ~7% faster than i5-12400F, ~13% slower than the Ryzen 5 7500F. 1080P Ultra: Intel Core Ultra 225F is ~9% faster than i5-12400F, ~9% slower than the Ryzen 5 7500F

Not an amazing CPU/GPU combo, but this is about $300 cheaper than building a comparable DIY PC right now due to RAM/SSD pricing

Buy 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD, get the rest of the PC for free!

Platform being mostly a single generation is a potential culprit. Also intel degradation issues possibly leaving a bad taste.

Why is the article bemoaning barely above 13600 when it also says it's 13% faster than its direct predecessor, the 14400? That's good gen on gen.

Also that any name after 14th gen is a complete mess and I don't have time to learn the intricacies between different models

I really don't understand the hate Intel has these days, especially the core ultra ones cuz they are cheaper, cooler and have very good performance not only for gaming but for workloads too.

The mobile Core Ultra 5 225H laptop chip has Arc 130T, which is 7 Xe LPG+ cores. The Core Ultra 225 desktop doesn't, it has 2 Xe LPG cores.

No. Poor performance, dead platform and end of service soon cause of 3xx Ultra using new socket.

Considering that the 225F has 4 less E-Cores than the i5-13600 and lacks Hyper-Threading, this is actually pretty good.

These don't make any sense as long as the 265K remains heavily discounted. Drop them to the price levels that Raptor Lake i5 CPUs are selling at now — then these locked Ultra 5 CPUs might make sense.

It's direct predecessor is the 14400 when looking at the core config and product stack, while the 225 with 6P+4E performs slightly better than a 6P+8E previous gen part. Especially the multicore score is impressive. 4 less cores and no HT and it still beats the 14600. That combined with probably much lower power draw and it's a decent package even now. Just needs to undercut the Ryzen 5 9600X on pricing to be a hugely competitive offering.

These LGA 1851 Core Ultra 5s don't seem like a major jump for those on LGA 1700 i5s. Might end up cheaper for those migrating from older DDR4 Intel systems to just go with an i5 12400F + LGA 1700 board using their existing DDR4 & reuse the RAM instead of going for a system involving this CPU, because there isn't a whole lot of reason to go for this looking at the performance.

This makes the platform make at least slightly more sense for someone that probably isn't gonna upgrade, it doesn't bridge the gap completely but with a good motherboard sale this makes a lot more sense than the 245K does

The 225F seems better than the 14400F it replaces but not worth that huge price jump from $130 to $191. LGA1851 mobos are more expensive, too. For those on a sub-$200 budget, it's possible to keep the RAM from an old Intel 14nm DDR4 build and just get a 14400F+mobo for a significant boost.

The desktop 225 has half of even that, just 2 Alchemist LP cores. If you want a good Arrow Lake iGPU, you'll want to look at the Core Ultra 5 245.

Ultra 2nd Gen which this is kills it over the 1st.. It's a solid price at 145.

Core Ultra CPUs aren't bad by any means but their price on release wasn't very competitive for gaming. Their multicore performance was indeed good while decreasing the high power draw of previous Intel generations. They also only matched multi core performance of previous Intel CPUs while falling behind in gaming frequently.

Yeah that's the thing with these intel chips, you need really fast memory (and probably a bit of tuning) to get numbers approaching the AMD equivalents. It was already expensive pre shortage, now it's outright unattainable for most buyers.

There's a seller on newegg and ebay 'computer-HQ' that has 'refurbished' MSI PRO B860-VC motherboards for $79.99 with free shipping. I ordered one and it came new, with all the accessories still sealed up. It's a great board for the money, with Thunderbolt 4, wifi 7, 5gb ethernet and 5th Gen PCIe for the GPU — combined with a chip like this it's a great value.

I have a 265K in an Unraid Plex server. Main benefit for ARL over RPL in this usecase is AV1 support.

It's not a TERRIBLE option. My issue with it isn't the CPU itself (at $179, the CPU itself is pretty compelling), but rather the fact that there's already some pretty strong indications that Intel is going to replace the motherboard socket with the next generation, making this socket a single-generation platform. That's unfortunate.

2 Xe cores won't get you far. Might as well buy an 8600g if you are after a good igpu in that price point.

NGL I want one for a Plex server

Interesting how the impression I got was how impressive the 14600K is in 1080p. Arguably the 14600K and below are safe from the worst effects of the Vmin Shift

I've built a few SFF systems with the 225F and 235 recently. I'm currently using the 235 as my daily driver. So far it seems fine for my production work. Having 14 cores definitely helps in code compiles. I don't really game beyond simple indie games though. As far as thermals go, it easily air cooled with a cheap Noctua cooler.

If you're looking for an $800 PC, this is it.

Honestly not really, only real 'worthwhile' Intel CPUs are 14600k (~$170) and 265k (~$300 with free aio)

I built one with 225F for my friend, and it's a very solid CPU for your everyday tasks and gaming. It ran so cool compared to my AMD 7600 CPU.

If you're mostly gaming, not worth the extra money at all. This will have the same exact performance for gaming as the 245K.

Also have 235 build with ASUS B860I and a 4090 in a SFFPC. Whilst the gaming performance is a bit behind AMD the system stays very cool and quiet. I am glad I chose it!

Nope. 225 iGPU is very anemic with only 2 Xe cores. Even 265K only has 4 Xe cores. It could do some very basic light gaming that I would under no circumstances call 'modern'.

It's ok for the price. Personally I would get a r5-7600 as they have been running about that same price anyway.

There are a lot of bad reviews on the Costco site on this one. There are a few complaints about the wireless being slow, general system slowness, and crashes.

My friend bought it back during Black Friday and he hasn't had any complaints.

I doubt many people will run out to buy this for their custom pc build, but some people will still end up with it considering it's been starting to appear in prebuilts. The performance difference compared to the aging 12400F is surprisingly small. Disappointing.

The Core Ultra 225F is a good CPU for productivity if you can get it at a decent price. That said, I'd recommend the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF instead if possible — it's usually only about $40 more and offers better single core and multi core performance, which can help with music production. These Core Ultra chips are somewhat underrated in my opinion and you'll likely have fewer driver or stability issues.

I hate 'F' chips. Confusing for no reason and even if you have a discrete GPU, the integrated GPU does a lot of great work media decoding and the like.

In a gpu bounded system, intel and amd perform similarly. The b580 is even weaker than the 9060xt / 5060ti. The 225f is cheaper than 7600x and 9600x. When paired with a b580, 225f is the best choice with best value even in gaming.

ZERO difference with a b580. Kitguru did testing and the 225f and 245k got the exact same fps with the b580.