Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF: Real Users Weigh In

if its for gaming, I would just grab Ryzen 7600, games doesnt benefit from core count but from core quality. I like how Intel moved the "i5/ultra5" level of CPU, which is meant for regular user to the 14 cores... for a regular user 4/6 cores are enough, for gamer 6/8 cores are enough.

This one's rough. While the 285K had a weak argument for content creation efficiency, the 245K is a complete dud, losing to the 12900K and 13600K in a bunch of games. As the video stated, the midrange "i5" CPUs are aimed at the budget gamer rather than content creators with a higher budget. And the budget gamer has plenty of other, better options.

Losing to 13600K in 7zip. Nice joke Intel, now release the real Core Ultra 200S.

It is not "bad" it is just disappointing performance for the price and novelty.

For gaming it makes no sense to buy Intel anyway. AMDs X3D chips have no competition and you can buy either a 5700X3D on a small budget or a 7600/7700 on medium budget and upgrade to X3D later.

Always depends on local pricing. In a vacuum, 245K is unimpressive because usually you can buy a 7600 for cheaper - plus, putting yourself on AMD basically guarantees a shot at an X3D chip if that's something you want. But if a 245K is cheaper enough in your area to be worth considering then you might as well consider it.

For actual multicore workloads like editing and stuff, absolutely. This chip is still no better than a 7600 in games though. No arguing with a free cooler.

1. Blue screens. 2. Apo not working outta box. 3. Launch slides performance exaggerated through apo cherrypicking. 4. Huge focus on power efficiency claims but ends up only comparable to zen4/5. 5. Performance regression in games against last gen, ~-5%. 6. 3nm and costly to manufacture, not priced low enough. 7. Power savings over 14th gen recoups price difference only after 6-8years. There's nothin spectacular about arrowlake, not efficiency, not price, not performance.

Now you have to find ram.

To bad you need 1000€ ram for it.

4% worse before the updates that improved performance, now is about the same (some games ahead some games behind).

A meta analysis based on more recent review data puts gaming performance roughly at parity with a 9700X and a little bit below a 14600K.

Intel's issue is not just pricing and performance. There's also the issue of both 1700 and 1851 being dead end platforms with no upgrade potential. The cost of upgrading to this platform just isn't worth it. If you're upgrading to the 245K you probably aren't already on 1851 and need to cough up the cost of at least the cpu and motherboard. Possibly even ddr5.

This is considerably slower in gaming than a 14600k, right?

Lucky for Intel he didn't even list the most brutal value comparison because the R5-7500f is not available for sale in NA. The Intel CPU loses to the 130€ AM5 CPU in many games. The price difference affords you an entire middle-class B650 motherboard. You'd have to be patently insane to grab the Intel CPU.

This a really good deal i just hate that intel changes sockets like a person changes underwear.

Ryzen 5 9600X.

its not bad for gaming. its just bad value. for the price of the any ultra you can get a better AMD cpu.

There are numerous performance regressions, inconsistent performance etc. Not even productivity performance is always better than 14th gen or amd 7000.

the intel is about 2x faster in multicore workloads. Video editing, coding, etc. its an absolute behemoth. Gaming should be around 50% faster than a 5800x. This could be more, depending on the game, but thats probably average. In short it is immensely better cpu.

If you overclock it right, its a great deal. Assuming you get a z890 Board and decent RAM. Also the IMC on Intel 200 is really good. My 265k even tho its not the best chip, can handle 8600Mhz on normal DDR5. And i can say for sure it was never that easy to overclock ram.

9600X. 245KF is only good if you're doing multicore productivity.

245KF sucks, the 14600K beats it easily. For $200 maybe we will talk, maybe but definitely not 270.

i got my 245KF for £130 during black friday, OC to 5.6/5.0 with tuned D2D/NGU and 44x ring with OC 8666MT memory and its my little bargain monster, very hard to complain when it was so cheap and can be so fast.

9600x hands down. The 265k is a close match but it is more $ and draws more power. Productivity and multi core performance is where the Arrow Lake is stronger, but gaming Zen5 is ahead.

I do agree that if you are upgrading from am4 or lga1700 this doesn't make much sense. I think this is pretty good if you are coming from lga 115x or 1200 this is fine considering the only cpu around this price point on am5 is the 9600x which doesn't beat this.

It's "bad" in the sense that it's slower than 13th and 14th gen equivalents. But it's not a terrible CPU. Just disappointing compared to expectations. At that price point I'd be comparing to the 9600X.

The entire Core 200 product stack is disappointing and sad in terms of gaming performance which makes them bad options for gaming. 20% worse gaming performance over 14th gen and somehow also having stability issues reported which is not what intel needs coming off of the foot of 14th gen. The 5700x3d manages to beat the core 285k in gaming by a margin. A cheap low end chip on the AM4 platform.

The 245k is NOT about the same as the 9700x in gaming. Its not even close. Its somewhere between the 7600x and 7700x.

Funny thing, the 9600X is roughly 6% faster than the 245k, which happens to also be exactly how much more that 9600X is than the 285k. However the 9600X also happens to get that 6% better performance with 30% less power usage. Which also means it runs a bit cooler / quieter.

After the 13th/14th gen issues, 15th gen was Intel's chance to redeem itself. And instead, they rushed it to market way too early, with bugs and inconsistent or below-expectations performance being the result. A lot of that has since been fixed, but it still means that Intel missed its chance to rebuild buyers' confidence.

Just to update and thank everybody who replied, I ended up buying the Gigabyte B650I and the 7600X just because I found good prices on Amazon.de, 200€ for the CPU and 150€ for the motherboard. I spent 350€ in total and the Intel 245K alone costs 330€ on Amazon.it, so I thought it was a great deal.

Absolutely NOT. Im with 245k + 7900xt and everything is perfect on 2k 240hz max settings. With 9 fans in my pc case both components works on 70*C in gaming max performance.

On paper, the 245KF isn't terrible. It's essentially a 12900K that uses 40% less power, and the 12900K was Intel's best CPU in years when it launched.

Don't even need to OC. My 245K runs everything I throw at it no problems.

Since gaming is the main priority then 9600x is the choice. There is a reason why intel offers 'gaming bundle', read between the lines.

If both are using 6000 mt/s ram and you do not update the bios for the intel, 9600x is about ~5% better on average. If you do the bios update and enable 200s, they are pretty much tied. If you pair the intel with 8000 rams, it's going to be faster.

It's not that bad in gaming. It's performance is worse than Zen 5 and Zen 5 X3d. But it matches the 5800x3d and 7600 which are still decent gaming chips. Core ultra makes sense if you want cheaper more features rich boards and have more productivity tasks as they beat zen5 in some workloads while being cheaper. If you're only gaming then zen5 makes more sense though.

I'm also looking for the same two products. I got a 245k for $200 at a local place on sale. The 9600x is selling for $230, and the $30 difference is an extremely high price in my country. I'll be opening 10-20 Android emulators at the same time and grinding. I also play games. CPU power is more important to me.

Well the largest problem is the upgrade path. There will be no more CPUs released on that socket so if you had the intention of upgrading in the future you would be stuck with the 285k and its quite high pricing. Otherwise you would need to buy a new motherboard as well, and potentially new ram too. On the other hand AMD currently has 2 generations on the am5 socket and will get a minimum of one more if not 2 generations compatible with the same motherboards.

I would take 7500f/7600/x/9500f/9600x over it any day of the week.

For $138 before taxes, it's a much better value than the 9600x and will spank it in multi-core productivity usage. Only limitation is no iGPU (ymmv as to how important it is to you) but that this price who cares. Will run at lower idling temps than AM5 chips as well. That plus the free cooler and game makes this deal a no-brainer.

Its suck cpu. I always go for intel until 13600k after changing to AMD. I bought 245k as i used to but all i can say its really bad for gaming with the price.