A fresh leak suggests Intel’s Core Ultra 200S Plus “Arrow Lake Refresh” desktop CPUs could have had an even bigger moment than expected. While the current refresh is said to include just two chips, a benchmark appearance from the rumored Core Ultra 9 290K Plus hints that Intel may have scrapped a surprisingly strong flagship.
According to recent chatter, Intel canceled the Core Ultra 9 290K (often described as the top-end option). That leaves the Arrow Lake Refresh family, at least for now, centered on two processors: the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus. The twist is that the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has now shown up in a Geekbench 6.5 listing, and the scores point to a noticeable leap over the existing Core Ultra 9 285K.
The leaked benchmark shows the 24-core Core Ultra 9 290K Plus posting a 3,747 single-core score and a 26,117 multi-core score in Geekbench 6.5. Like other Arrow Lake Refresh parts, it reportedly runs with a modest +100 MHz boost clock bump, topping out at 5.8 GHz compared to the Core Ultra 9 285K. The listing also notes the use of Intel Binary Optimization (IBOT), a platform-level tuning approach that can help squeeze out extra performance.
To put those numbers in context, the Core Ultra 9 285K has been seen scoring around 3,260 single-core and 21,688 multi-core in Geekbench 6.5. If the leaked results are accurate, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus would be roughly 15% faster in single-core performance and about 20% faster in multi-core performance versus the Core Ultra 9 285K. That would be a substantial gain for what’s positioned as a “refresh,” especially in workloads where higher multi-core throughput directly translates to faster rendering, encoding, compiling, and heavy multitasking.
The same leak also paints the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus as a serious competitor to AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X in these specific benchmarks, with the Intel chip appearing about 10% ahead in single-core and 22% ahead in multi-core Geekbench 6.5 results. If Intel had released this processor broadly, it could have put pressure on the very top of the mainstream desktop CPU market, especially for buyers who prioritize both snappy single-threaded speed and strong multi-threaded muscle.
So why would Intel abandon a part that looks this good on paper? There’s no official reason, but cost and product positioning could be factors. Reports suggest the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus already lands close to Ryzen 9 9950X-class performance while coming in far cheaper, making it a value-driven alternative that could be easier to sell at scale. If a less expensive chip is already matching a key rival, a more expensive flagship might be harder to justify—particularly if it complicates the lineup or squeezes margins.
Even with those questions hanging in the air, the Arrow Lake Refresh launch still looks appealing for a specific group of PC builders: anyone already on Intel’s LGA1851 platform who wants a straightforward performance bump to tide them over until the next major architecture. For upgrades within the same socket, the Core Ultra 200S Plus series could be a practical way to extend a build’s lifespan without a full platform overhaul.
Of course, it’s worth remembering that leaked benchmarks don’t always reflect final retail performance. Test configurations, memory settings, background processes, and early firmware can all influence results. But if this Geekbench entry is representative, the “canceled” Core Ultra 9 290K Plus may end up being one of the more interesting what-if desktop CPU stories of the generation.
