Intel Core Ultra 9 285K vs. Intel Core i9-14900K

There’s only one way to determine performance uplifts whenever a new generation of CPUs rolls around: a good, old-fashioned head-to-head. Pitting Intel Core Ultra 9 285K vs. Intel Core i9-14900K lets us easily see where you should sink your hard-earned cash – if you should upgrade at all.

At first sight, it doesn’t look like much has changed under the hood, but there’s more than meets the eye here. After all, Intel wouldn’t opt for an entire series name change without something in store. Still, the Arrow Lake flagship has big shoes to fill, given the last of the i9s remains one of the best CPUs for content creators.

Specs

Core Ultra 9 285K has much that’s new, now using a quad tile-based design pulled over from the mobile firmament. The devil is in the details, though. Compared with Raptor Lake Refresh home to Core i9-14900K, the package on the new processor is smaller, more modular, and includes an NPU (neural processing unit) this time around, while its eight Lion Core performance and 16 Skymont efficient cores are brand new to Arrow Lake.

Breezing past the small discrepancies in frequencies, which are mostly in step with one another, the biggest difference is that Core Ultra 9 285K drops hyperthreading. There’s a method behind the apparent madness, as it’s an efficiency play, avoiding the need for more transistors that would inevitably bump up power consumption. This reduces the thread count from Core i9-14900K by eight, by the way.

Credit where it’s due: Intel has priced the latest processor $10 cheaper than 14900K’s MSRP. However, after a year on the block, i9 has seen a few discounts in its time. Realistically, you can grab the older chip for $440, creating a $139 gap between the two.

Performance

To create this Clash of the Titans, we benchmarked both processors from scratch on top of a freshly updated Windows 11 24H2 platform. Core i9-14900K slots into our trusty ASRock Phantom Gaming Z790 Nova WiFi, while Core Ultra 9 285K sits atop Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Pro Ice – each with the latest BIOS.

Keeping the remaining components identical, they’re both joined by Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 for the visuals and be quiet! Dark Power 13 1,000W for the juice. Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 keeps them cool, and 64GB (2x32GB) Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 occupies the memory slots.

Without further ado, let’s get into the tests.

Productivity

Although headline specs are largely similar between chips, it’s not the greatest start for the Arrow Lake flagship. More threads on Intel Core i9-14900K keep it 12% faster than Core Ultra 9 285K in 7-Zip, which itself pales compared to AMD’s latest in compression tests.

Architectural changes, particularly introducing stronger E-cores, help Intel’s latest shine in Y-Cruncher. Core Ultra 9 285K boasts a 7% reduction in computation time over its power-hungry predecessor.

Working its magic, Core Ultra 9 285K inches ahead in Geekbench 6. Granted, it’s not by a large margin, with 3% between the two CPUs in single-core and just 1% in multi-core tests, but it’s a much-needed win. In fact, the Arrow Lake flagship beats all other chips that we’ve tested.

Not one to miss out on the AI hype, Intel packs a dedicated NPU into Core Ultra 200’s tiles, but that’s not what’s at work here. Strangely, Geekbench 6’s machine learning test runs on the CPU, yet Ultra 9 285K still runs away with 18% better scores.

Rendering

Core Ultra 9 285K’s 11% lead in Blender rendering software is enough to instil faith in Arrow Lake. Consider it also runs 62W shy of 14900K, and it becomes a much more impressive feat. 2024 is the year of efficiency, so this comes as no surprise, but it’s still a welcome buff for Team Blue.

Arrow Lake takes a 6.6% lead in single-core and 11.8% improvement in multi-core tests over its predecessor, but the bigger picture is much more telling. Core 9 285K not only beats 14900K in Cinebench 2024 but trounces every other CPU out there in our review, taking pole position in the software.

Core Ultra’s multi-core performance kicks it with the best, offering 12% more than the year-old i9 in Corona 10. Unfortunately, it’s much harder to parse the two in productivity benchmarks, with as little as 1.7% between the chips.

Memory

Intel’s latest is a mixed bag when it comes to AIDA Memory benchmarks. On one hand, Core Ultra 9 285K excels in read speeds, but it can’t match its predecessor for writes. For now, it’s tough to tell whether the software has an issue reporting latency with Arrow Lake or it’s simply behind the rest of the pack.

Gaming

With Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 at the graphics helm, all chips we put against 3DMark Speed Way came out with similar results. These are no exception.

Core i9-14900K takes the cake in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla performance, but it’s tough to call it a decisive loss for Core Ultra 9 285K, with no more than 7fps difference between the two chips at any resolution. This debate becomes particularly muddier when considering the difference in efficiency and price.

Despite a small lead at 4K, Arrow Lake doesn’t quite muster the strength to best its predecessor at other resolutions, even when trying Intel APO (Application Optimisation). Instead, 14900K rules the roost with a rather large 15fps jump at HD and 17fps lead at QHD.

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail prefers Raptor Lake Refresh over its more modern sibling, affording the former flagship a couple of extra frames here and there. You probably won’t notice much difference at no more than 3.6% between them, though.

Flipping the script, 14900K doesn’t quite catch its replacement in Forza Motorsport. For a new generation, Core Ultra 9 285K offers lukewarm performance gains between 4-5fps in the racing game, but upwards is upwards.

Grabbing the only true win of all our gaming benchmarks, Core Ultra 9 285K runs away with performance in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. QHD features the biggest gap, with Arrow Lake earning an average of 30fps more than its sibling, but 23fps more at HD and 9fps at UHD is nothing to scoff at.

This is a testament to the new architecture, given real-time strategy (RTS) games are always a good challenge for CPUs. That said, don’t expect such a stark difference in other more GPU-bound games, as we can see with our other tests.

Efficiency

Intel makes good on its promise of efficiency, as system power consumption drops by 17% when moving to Core Ultra 200 at its default 125W/250W settings. It’s the same in games, where there’s a noticeable drop in load wattage. Let’s use Assassin’s Creed Valhalla as an example.

For remarkably similar performance, this doesn’t seem a bad trade-off, but there’s a caveat. You could simply cap 14900K’s power in your BIOS to mimic its successor, which doesn’t come at the expense of much performance. Pair this with the fact that both share identical idle draws, where your system will spend most of its time, and this seems less impactful.

Lower power consumption logically equates to lower temperatures, as Arrow Lake comes in 13.8% cooler than Intel’s other CPUs – including 14900K. It doesn’t reach the level of chill AMD’s latest Zen 5 bunch has, but towing the 80°C line means it avoids thermal throttling in intense applications like Cinebench 2024.

Value

By dividing a processor’s Cinebench 2024 multi-core score by its power draw under load, we get Club386’s CPU Efficiency Rating. It’s as clear as day that Core Ultra 9 285K not only laps its predecessor by 35%, but it’s one of the most efficient chips we’ve put to the test where performance is concerned.

Swap out the power draw for its launch price in the same equation and you get the Club386 CPU Value Rating. This is a much tighter battle where Core Ultra 9 285K just about clinches it by 3.5%. It’s not bad for a launch, but it’s not quite singing the same tune as the rest of the market.

Intel has reduced the price of 14900K to $443 at the time of writing, which is $146 cheaper than it was a year ago at launch. Factor this in, and it drastically changes the Value Rating to 4.89, slingshotting it ahead of its successor by 28%.

Conclusion

Prioritising efficiency above all else, Intel Core Ultra 9 285K doesn’t make many performance leaps. As you’d expect for a newer chip, it’s certainly the go-to of the duo if you want AI computation, and it offers an adequate uplift in rendering software. Still, there’s little else to entice an upgrade for those already on a recent enough platform.

If you run a 14900K, my recommendation is to stay put for the time being. Granted, it’s been through its fair share of trials and tribulations with voltage issues, but microcode fixes mean i9 is more stable than ever. Besides, it has the flexibility to scale downwards and meet Core Ultra’s efficiency if you’re fine with power caps.

Considering an upgrade from an older CPU, Arrow Lake has at least some merit. While Intel hasn’t officially committed to the new LGA1851 socket beyond this generation, whispers suggest 2025 and 2026 releases will also support it. This tracks, considering 13th and 14th Gen shared LGA1700. If true, you’ll get access to Thunderbolt 5 off the bat and ready yourself for the future. Meanwhile, opting for 14900K means you’ll need to plan a motherboard swap for whatever comes next, which could offset the $130 saving.

Otherwise, we’re at the end of generational releases for the year, with just Ryzen 9 9800X3D remaining. It’s worth waiting a few weeks to see whether it will truly revolutionise gaming, especially given the lukewarm performance Core Ultra displays in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Cyberpunk 2077, and Forza Motorsport.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

Borrowing its multi-tile design from the lauded Lunar Lake architecture, Arrow Lake focuses more on efficiency while minimising sacrificed performance. Read our review.

Intel Core i9-14900K

Running with a fully unrestricted performance of up to 330W for just the chip alone, this is one of Intel’s most formidable CPUs around. Read our review.