Intel Core Ultra 9 285K: Reddit's Honest Verdict

Performance of the 285K in gaming really is somewhere between disappointing and embarrassing. I already kind of planned on Zen 5 X3D, and this release certainly hasn't changed my mind.

I'm puzzled why they decided to even release these?

Well done Intel! Achieving slower gaming performance than AMD's now two generation older CPU (5800x3D) while still using more than double power. It seems like the node wasn't the only issue that was holding Intel back.

This maybe the worst CPU generation I have ever witnessed at least in my own perspective. Not including Bulldozer because I wasn't around back then and also they were dirt cheap; Core Ultra series aren't.

What a cluster fxxk — game performance regression, matching 7700X? For an i9 price? geez

Well, yeah 4K Max Settings is stressing the hell out of your GPU not your CPU — of course it's running cool lol. That's like bragging that driving my car really fast doesn't overheat my boat.

It's amazing how much of a nothing burger Arrow Lake ended up being. Kinda embarrassing when you consider all the packaging tech they developed which is good in theory but can't possibly be cheap to produce vs AMD's simple CPU/interconnect chiplet approach.

It's not necessary for consumers to buy an inferior product from a multibillion dollar company now backed by the global superpower's government.

If you're a gamer, this intel gen is off limits. Don't bother at all. It's basically their 'zen1' moment on desktop — good in productivity work but meh in gaming. Intel has to iron out the issues with the cross tile latency the same way AMD had to back in the day.

In worst cases 285K is 30% behind 14900K. Judging by all the issues, some reviewers even reported PC refused to boot on Win11 24H2 — these CPUs were released too soon. They are broken at launch and this might as well cost Intel a generation, because it's not easy to shake off first bad impressions.

I own a 285k and I can say the stock experience is average, but the platform is great and coming from 14900k, the temps and power efficiency are impressive. Once fully tuned, 9000c38 A-die, 36 d2d and 34 ngu, gaming is on par with 14900k, but more efficient. I think nova lake will be amazing.

I wasn't doing a benchmark comparison, I was just showing my score on R23. Playing the same games with the same 4K settings, direct-die cooled 14KS core temps were 20c-30c higher than 285K. That's significant and has nothing to do with being GPU bound in 4K gaming.

The 14900k still disintegrates on a regular basis. Do you want to take that risk? I'd go with the 285K because of that. The 285k is also better for productivity, just slightly weaker in gaming.

The biggest issue was that it was crippled by the ported meteor lake memory controller dies its that simple.

Indeed. Cooling difficulty is greatly reduced from prior generations, and if you're using a "7" level CPU or less a basic air cooler will be more than enough for maximum performance.

Looks like a strong CPU for productivity and business use case. For gaming we are better off with the Ryzen 3D CPUs. That being said, I am now starting to buy my parts for the 9800x3d — fortunately for me, the decision was made very easy.

14900k has better gaming performance and 285k better productivity performance and upgradeability and power efficiency. Tbh if you don't care about power usage and upgradeability then get the 14900k.

My same experience with both of my 265k systems. They have been extremely stable for me and very efficient. Never have to worry about temps and they perform well with a 5080 and 9070XT. Contrary to all the media rhetoric I enjoy gaming with them.

I switched to AMD this gen, had a 13900k and the crashes were frequent. No issues since switching to the 9800x3D.

That's all what consumers care about. They don't care if ARL on paper or on theory is some great reset. Perf, power, and cost is what's important.

I think Intel deserves the criticism they're getting here. The sheer lack of performance, the need to purchase a new motherboard when this socket may be a one and done, and Intel's handling of Raptor Lake — all three together make this a really hard sell.

285K? Ehhhhhhhhh. The 265K is so extremely close to it and so severely cheaper that it's hard to justify.

If you already have the Core 7 265K I wouldn't change it. It's a good CPU. The Core i9-14900K is 10% faster in games for much more power consumption. Core 9 285K is best case 15% faster in productivity workloads, often less.

Alder Lake was definitely the last great desktop generation for Intel — far more performant than last gen, way more efficient, priced effectively and competitively. Meanwhile Arrow Lake has a 3 node jump over Raptor Lake, yet has less performance at least in gaming.

It is still worst than 13/14K series, and significantly worse than AM5 X3D chips for gaming. Also that socket is already dead so you'd have no upgrade path.

Honestly if you're going for the top and you're just gaming, you should just get the 9800X3D. the 285K is not better.

Headlines abound about Arrowlake being bad for gaming, but I'm thinking about a 285k upgrade as well to support compute applications, and I game at 4K so the whole 'bad for gaming' argument pretty much collapses.

Been happy with mine as well — had it for over a month. I'm actually cooling it with a double fan MSI cooler and I've never had it over 80 degrees under heavy load, perfectly happy about it.

It's not 13th/14th gen problems bad (we hit silicon degradation to instability in under 6 months on more than half our 13900k/14900k deployment), but for the ~$600 you're spending on it, I'd rather just have the 16 normal cores in the 9950x.

This is Intel Zen1 moment. A big shift in philosophy for Intel (where high frequency and low latency at any cost is no longer the goal) which is arguably the right direction. However, there's still a lot of kinks to iron out. Non gaming workloads perform well, which gives me hope that gaming problems can be addressed in future iterations of the architecture.

I will go with Intel because of reliability. Everything just works — the boot is faster, wakes from sleep, it's a more mature platform. Idle power consumption is another thing that is important to me.

I recently had a new machine built. I was originally thinking of going with an Intel I9-14900KF, or perhaps a Ryzen 9950X3D. But after doing a lot of research I decided on the Intel 9 285 K. I paired it with a RTX5070ti 16 G, and 32 GB of 6400 MB/s ram. I have only had the machine for about a week, and I have not touched the bios or overclocked the chip yet. I was able to run Microsoft Flight Simulator on ultra settings and the chip hardly noticed driving a 32" 1080P monitor.

I just built a 285K to replace my 14900KS and couldn't agree more. On this one I don't care about gaming performance as it's an audio work machine, but it is a significant improvement in my actual work projects so far even much larger than something like Cinebench multicore would suggest. And the E-cores overclock nicely (and the P-cores undervolt nicely).

Love my 285k too, it renders 4k footage sooo fasssssssttttt.

Go for the Ultra. 14900K has problems of stability, runs extremely hot during workload and consumes much more power. Yeah, the Ultra has a bit less gaming performance but it's barely noticeable — people complain way too much just because of a 3-5 FPS difference.

Seems to be pretty strong in non gaming tasks and its power use is lower than the last gen. If productivity is what counts the most and you get it for a decent price, it could be a win.

My experience editing 4K footage in Premiere Pro with the h264 codec has been fantastic.

I'm similarly 3 months in to using my latest 265K-based build. I've been happy with it. The 265K gives you most of what the 285K offers, but at a significantly lower price.

It got much better with all microcode revisions, so it's not slower than 14th gen anymore. It's very much on par with Zen5 non X3D in gaming, but much faster everywhere else. I got a 265K instead of a 285K, cause it's really close in gaming performance. And I saw the uplifts with each BIOS update.

I really do like my 285k. It is running on an MSI pro 890 p-wifi and 48 Go DDR5 GSkill running at 8000 Mhz. It's damn stable and doesn't overheat. It is an audio pro rig but recently installed a Rog astral 5080 in it. I'm not a pro player but I play really often and can play what I want without being a fanatic of the latest FPS I could gain. For me its a keeper.

285K seems to have fantastic workstation performance. We landed on 265K, it benches very favorably compared to AM5 parts in nearly every workload except for gaming, and even then, that's mostly the X3D parts, and even then, that's when there is virtually no GPU bottleneck. Most initial 'gaming' reviews were done exclusively with 5090s, which is extremely unrealistic for most gamers.

I have that configuration you want to build. Go for the 285k without a doubt. I've been working and gaming with Intel for years and this is honestly one of the best Intel processors I've had — incredible raw power and perfect stability. Temps are great, I have it with a Noctua NH-D15 and it doesn't go above 70°C under high load, mostly stays between 35–50°C.

The only scenario I'd recommend the current core ultra CPUs: cheaper than the AM5 alternative, prioritizing productivity workloads, or not planning on upgrading within 5 years. Otherwise, I don't think I've ever recommended core ultra.

It's a stepping stone — the efficiency is super and it performs the same as a 14900 drawing a lot less power. Impressive.