Intel Core Ultra 5 225T: Real Users Debate Its NAS Value

Come up with new naming scheme to make things simpler. Come up with bloated SKU variants that are hard to follow. The marketing never learns.

Oh god, two more letters to add to the Intel vocabulary.

So 235 is 3% faster in ST than 14500 at the same clock, but 285K is 9% faster in ST than 14900K despite being clocked 300 MHz lower. Also, Geekbench doesn't seem to translate well to FPS in games.

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.

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.

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.

Core 5 235 consumes same or even less on average than 7800X3D. Also it has lower temps than 7800X3D.

The desktop 225 has half of even that, just 2 Alchemist LP cores. These are all very different CPUs.

AMD has come a long way on transcoding, but Quicksync still wins on performance and compatibility, especially with Frigate, this is going to matter. If it was me, I'd go with the 225 without a doubt for home server efficiency, it's hard to beat Intel, especially when transcoding tasks are potentially on the table.

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

The Ultra 5 235 is a bit faster than a 9700X but slower than a 14600K. The 225 falls behind making it as fast as a 9600X or a 12600K.

The 7800x3d is around 30% faster than the 235 in gaming. And it can perform well with garbage RAM and cooling, it uses little power, and will be able to be upgraded in the future on the same motherboard.

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.

14500 and below (same with 13500 and below) are basically Alder Lake inside (aka 12th gen), and more importantly not affected by the instability issues.

There likely won't be any meaningful difference for your use case. Plex transcoding is basically a solved problem even with much weaker CPUs. LGA1851 is technically more future proof, but Intel's sockets are short-lived anyway.

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. It easily air cooled with a cheap Noctua cooler.

If you're processing media, use Intel and move to the H series with 4x the iGPU and 2x the media engines. If you're going to do that via ARC or RTX then can use AMD cpu. Efficiency comes from using most suitable hardware acceleration and staying away from gaming stuff.

Was expecting a larger ST perf uplift to be honest.

The igpu is nicer on the 255. I don't know how much nicer (encoding h.265 fast? Av1 support? Shrug). But a typical home server doesn't actually need that much CPU gas.

Basically 2 whole node jumps, and we get what essentially amounts to a margin of error as an upgrade? Something is off here.

I recently went from a 10400 to a 235, which I would recommend over the 225 since you get 4 more cores for like $10. The iGPU in the Ultra series 2 chips is way way better. I changed the encoding preset from fast to veryslow and still get better fps than with my 10400.

I have a 265k, same asus mobo, 2 pcie gen 3 drives and 6 spinners. All spun down I get about 30-35 watts when idle measured from my ups. I've been pretty happy with that as the coffee lake gen xeon I had couldn't get below 48 watts in a similar setup.

What 14th generation CPU did you have? What consumed so little?

I have an ultra 7 265 running right now. Haven't had any stability issues and it's running most of my lab very efficiently.

I didn't realize the 225 doesn't support ECC, I value it, but it may not matter for a lot of people depending on risk tolerance. My server works with a decent amount of important data, not just entertainment media.

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.

Most websites I can find place it similarly to a 1060 so not really up to modern dedicated gaming rig standards but will do in a pinch for most titles at 1080. If you're looking at this as a permanent setup for a gaming pc you're better sacrificing some on the cpu to make room in your budget for virtually any dedicated gpu.

For modern games, I don't think so. It can run many simple games. The iGPU would have a significant advantage for video encoding thanks to Quick Sync, or go for an Intel Arc B570.

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!

T series CPUs are only sold to Dell, HP, and Lenovo (and a few other OEMs like Asus in smaller numbers). Thus you only find them on ebay as parts pulls, or in the 1 liter corp desktop systems.

Your new Intel Meteor Lake CPU and motherboard are still waiting on better software and firmware updates to fully support deep low-power states, so the idle power you're seeing (around 30W) is higher than older CPUs for now. To improve it, update your BIOS, use the latest Linux kernel, and tweak power settings, but expect that idle efficiency will get better over time as support matures.

I'm at 35w with the Z890m and ultra 7 265k under-volt by .05 volts. That's with 1 nvme drive and 1 constantly running 3.5 drive for camera recording. There are also 4 spin down drives and I am running ~8 dockers most notably home assistant + frigate (openvino on GPU).

By shaving off 80W from a new build, I calculated I can save $380/year in electric costs. The new build would be $700 and a MASSIVE upgrade in performance at the same time. It would pay for itself in less than 2 years.

Where I am, 245K is EUR 20 cheaper than 235. However, due to size/cooler constraints of hardware I'd like to re-use, the TDP / PL1 & PL2 of the 235 make a lot more sense.

Generally between 60 to 100 watts. Super heavy load will be about 115 watts. This is with 4 hard drives. Idle is about 60.

For stuff like league of legends or dota it can even handle 1440p 180 fps+ maxed out. Can also handle stuff like Roblox. Triple A games no chance. Competitive shooters (CS, Fortnite, Overwatch, Paladins) only at low settings. The ultra 200 desktop series integrated graphics (245 and up) is about as good as a 1050ti.

You could just get a standard 235 (or even better, a 245k because they're cheaper right now) and put a power limit on it in the BIOS to get the same effect.

I have a 11400t with a rtx 4600t max power = 220w. The i7 265t seems a better choice: 225t is 35% slower than the 265t but priced at €247.90 vs €345.00 for the 265t.

It turns out Google AI misled me. Since the 8600G and 8500G are in a similar price range to the Core 5 Ultra 225, but with much better integrated graphics, I'll most likely buy a new computer with one of those CPUs.

The Core Ultras are just DOA. The rebranding was a bad enough idea, but even worse is the performance. On a bad platform.