Intel’s newly released Core Ultra 250K Plus might not look like a gaming chip at first glance, especially if you’re judging it by its small integrated GPU. But fresh testing shows that Intel’s built-in graphics on this Arrow Lake desktop CPU is far more capable than many people would expect. In fact, it can beat Steam Deck-level performance in certain benchmarks and even deliver playable 1080p gaming in several popular titles.
All Arrow Lake Core Ultra desktop processors ship with a 4 Xe-core integrated GPU, including the new Core Ultra 200S Plus lineup. Overclocker Alva Jonathan (also known as Lucky_n00b) put the Core Ultra 250K Plus through a series of tests and found the iGPU to be genuinely usable for light gaming and practical everyday tasks.
To set expectations correctly, this isn’t Intel’s most advanced integrated graphics solution. The 4 Xe-core design is much smaller than the beefier iGPU configurations seen in newer mobile-focused platforms, such as the higher-core iGPUs planned across other Intel SoCs. Arrow Lake’s iGPU also uses the older Xe+ (Alchemist) graphics architecture, rather than the newer generations found elsewhere. That said, it still has real-world value on a desktop CPU, especially for users who want a reliable fallback display option, basic gaming without a graphics card, or strong media features for streaming and content creation.
In synthetic testing such as 3DMark Fire Strike and OpenCL benchmarks, the integrated GPU reportedly offers around 1.8 TFLOPs of compute performance. That’s enough to land it slightly ahead of the Steam Deck’s GPU in overall performance comparisons, and roughly in the same neighborhood as an AMD Ryzen 5 8500G APU with 4 RDNA 2 compute units. Another bonus: it doesn’t demand massive memory bandwidth to function well. The iGPU was shown running fine with DDR5-6000, making it a realistic option for mainstream desktop builds.
Where things get more interesting is gaming. Despite having only 4 Xe cores, the Core Ultra 250K Plus iGPU can handle several games at 1080p with the right settings. Reported results include an average of about 91 FPS in Counter-Strike 2 at 1080p using Low settings along with FSR set to Balanced. Genshin Impact was shown averaging around 60 FPS at 1080p with Low settings and FSR 2 enabled. More demanding games such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Shadow of the Tomb Raider were still playable, hovering around 30 FPS on average using low settings.
Beyond gaming, one of the most practical reasons to care about Intel’s integrated graphics on Core Ultra 200S desktop CPUs is AV1 encoding support. This feature is only available on models that keep the iGPU enabled, meaning KF and F variants won’t include it. With AV1 encoding, users can handle tasks like 4K 60 FPS video encoding without putting extra workload onto a discrete GPU, which is useful for streamers, video editors, and anyone trying to keep their main GPU focused on rendering or gameplay.
There’s also headroom for enthusiasts: the iGPU has shown strong overclocking potential in previous demonstrations, reaching up to around 3 GHz. While that won’t suddenly turn it into a high-end gaming solution, it does reinforce the idea that Intel’s “small” desktop iGPU is more than just a display output for troubleshooting.
For most desktop gamers, a dedicated graphics card will still be the main choice. But the Intel Core Ultra 250K Plus proves that integrated graphics on a modern desktop CPU can be surprisingly capable, delivering respectable 1080p performance in esports titles, playable results in heavier games with lowered settings, and valuable AV1 encoding for modern media workflows.
