Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake mobile refresh is shaping up to be a modest step forward rather than a massive leap, and early benchmark leaks are starting to show what that really means for buyers. The new flagship chip is expected to be called the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, and based on what’s surfaced so far, it’s designed to refine performance with higher clocks while keeping the same core layout as last year’s top model.
Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus keeps the familiar 24-core, 24-thread configuration found on the Core Ultra 9 285HX. That’s an important detail for anyone expecting a big generational shift—this looks more like a tuned refresh focused on frequency and optimization, not a redesign with more cores. While there have been rumors around desktop plans changing for the “Plus” branding, Intel appears to be moving ahead with the mobile flagship release.
A recent Geekbench listing gives us an early look at how the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus might perform in real laptops. In the leak, the chip reportedly scores 3,153 points in single-core and 21,720 points in multi-core performance. The test system appears to be an Acer Predator laptop configured with 64GB of RAM, which suggests a high-end gaming or performance-focused platform.
When compared with Geekbench results from the Core Ultra 9 285HX, the gains are present—but they’re not dramatic. Depending on which published 285HX results you line up against, the 290HX Plus comes in around 6% faster in single-core performance and about 8% faster in multi-core performance. In other words, you can expect a small but measurable uplift in both everyday responsiveness and heavier workloads, even though the core count hasn’t changed.
This also isn’t the first time the 290HX Plus has appeared in benchmarks. Earlier sightings on PassMark hinted at a bigger multi-core advantage—around a 15% improvement versus the 285HX—while also landing close to the performance level of a Core Ultra 9 285K desktop chip. That gap between benchmarks is a reminder that results can vary widely depending on the test, laptop configuration, power limits, cooling, and early firmware.
Clock speed is likely where most of the improvement comes from. Leaks have suggested boost speeds up to 5.45 GHz, while the Geekbench entry implies the chip may boost closer to 5.5 GHz—similar to what some 285HX systems already show. Because these are leaked, pre-release figures, it’s best to treat the exact numbers cautiously until Intel confirms final specifications and laptop makers ship retail systems.
For shoppers, the practical takeaway is clear: the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus is shaping up as an incremental upgrade that should be slightly faster in single-core and multi-core tasks, rather than a must-have replacement for current Core Ultra 9 285HX owners. However, for anyone buying a new high-end gaming laptop or mobile workstation soon, the 290HX Plus could offer a bit more performance headroom—especially in systems that allow the chip to sustain higher boost clocks with strong cooling and power tuning.
