Intel’s upcoming Arrow Lake Refresh push isn’t limited to desktops. A dedicated mobile lineup under the “Plus” branding is also on the way, and early performance numbers suggest the flagship chip could shake up the high-end laptop CPU rankings.
The Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus has now surfaced in PassMark results, where it’s currently sitting at the top of the mainstream mobile CPU charts. In the listing, the processor scores 5,009 points in single-core performance and an eye-catching 66,203 points in multi-core performance, putting it ahead of other popular x86 mobile processors.
What makes these gains especially notable is that the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus doesn’t appear to rely on extra cores to get there. It’s still a 24-core, 24-thread part—matching the configuration of the previous flagship, the Core Ultra 9 285HX—yet it manages to deliver meaningful improvements. Based on the benchmark numbers, the 290HX Plus is about 8% faster in single-core performance and roughly 14.6% faster in multi-threaded workloads versus the 285HX.
PassMark also reports a boost clock reaching 5.45 GHz for the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus. While that figure may not represent the final official boost specification—and could potentially be higher—it helps explain how Intel is extracting more performance from a similar core layout. In practical terms, this kind of uplift can translate into snappier everyday responsiveness, faster creation workloads, and better performance in heavily threaded tasks like rendering and compiling.
Perhaps the most attention-grabbing detail is how close this mobile chip appears to be to desktop-class territory. The Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus is positioned as competitive with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K desktop processor in these PassMark results, which is exactly the type of headline-grabbing performance laptop enthusiasts look for when shopping for a no-compromise system.
For buyers considering an enthusiast-grade laptop—especially for productivity-heavy use—the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus is shaping up to be one of the most compelling mobile CPU options in this generation. That said, gaming is its own battleground. Even with top-tier single-core and multi-threaded numbers, it may still face stiff competition in gaming-focused performance from AMD’s Ryzen 9 9955HX3D, a chip built with gaming advantages in mind.
With Arrow Lake Refresh “Plus” processors expected to arrive for laptops alongside updated desktop parts, more benchmark leaks and official details should paint an even clearer picture soon. For now, PassMark’s early results make one thing clear: Intel’s Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus is setting a new bar for mainstream mobile CPU performance.
