Intel Core Ultra 5 235A: Reddit's Verdict on the Silent OEM Launch

1. Come up with new naming scheme to make things 'simpler'. 2. Come up with bloated SKU variants that are hard to follow. The marketing never learns.

It can't be worse than 'Ryzen HX 390 AI Max+ Pro'.

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

B570 doesn't get enough love.

How many suffixes does Intel have at this point? We have K, KS, F, KF, X, H, HX, P, U, V, E, KE, Y, C, B, and now A...

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. I'm confused.

Could be something like the U9 having more cache, or the U9 run was done with faster memory, or a more aggressive tuning. Or, as you pointed out, geekbench could just be terrible.

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.

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.

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.

Core 5 235 consumes the same or even less on average than 7800X3D. Also it has lower temps than 7800X3D. How is that off-putting to you?

The Ultra 5 235 is a bit faster than a 9700X but slower than a 14600K in Handbrake. 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.

I also went with Core Ultra. I went with it because I just wanted an all-Intel PC and I wasn't bothered by anything that the Core Ultra CPU had.

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

235 destroys the 8600G and more so the 8400F and the 7500F. Just because their flagship K series CPUs are bad for gaming doesn't mean that the entire Arrow Lake line is bad. And next year Nova Lake will surpass Ryzen again even on gaming.

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

The lower end ones are on fire sale. That may be why people are picking them up.

Was expecting a larger single-threaded performance uplift to be honest.

The 235 is the best midrange choice right now due to recent benchmarks, also for gaming. Efficient, fast, enough cores and the price is right.

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's easily air cooled with a cheap Noctua cooler.

It literally doesn't matter. Like T, these will only ever show up in OEM office PCs that are bulk order.

Aren't these just variants from the main SKU for some form factor like all-in-one PCs?

The 235 is a decent pick if you specifically need budget-oriented multi-core speed. Also has QuickSync for some additional rendering benefit if your app uses that. For gaming, there's no reason to pick Intel above the extreme low budget builds. AM5 is pretty much universally better for gaming builds, simply because of the future X3D upgrade path.

The one using Intel 3 is interesting. Would be nice if some content creator made a small comparison against the TSMC one.

Could you just use a non-T chip and set a low power limit? That would give you the same TDP-constrained behavior without hunting for the hard-to-find T variant.

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 corporate desktop systems.

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.

Intel is super poor value for most applications these days.

I think the 235 is the best midrange choice right now, as recent benchmarks show even its gaming performance (especially frametimes) is on par with more costly AMD options. It is also extremely efficient and hence, will put low demand on your cooling and power supply.

I have the Acer Nitro B570 and it's been handling everything I've ever needed it to so far. Was an upgrade from a 1070 Ti and feels great.

I don't get it. If they are power efficient versions, shouldn't they configure with more E-Cores and fewer P-Cores? Instead of 6+8, they could have gone with 4+16 or 4+12?

It's just a repackaged version of 'ARL-U', which is completely misleading naming as it's really just an Intel 3 port of Meteor Lake, not Arrow Lake.

Thankful that Intel isn't giving me a reason not to switch to AMD next upgrade tbh.

Silently launches because they know their stuff is shit.

In a homelab NAS the 245T will probably be overkill. But if you're happy to throw the money at it, it will be energy efficient (as efficient as x86 can be) and will take many years before you outgrow it. In my use case (legacy app — heavily single-threaded), the 245 non-T made a fantastic choice when weighing price vs single-threaded performance.

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 as the T variant.

LGA1851 B860 boards are cheap actually — you can get a B860M Pro RS WiFi by Asrock for like 120 euros. For budget builders that will be swapping the entire PC after like 4-5 years, good deal.

I also consider the Core Ultra 5 235 which costs $362 here and seems the best option at the moment for productivity desktop (music production, SketchUp). 1851 socket, CPU features, low TDP.

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