After looking at the new [1]Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor earlier this month with its nice performance evolution for Arrow Lake on Linux, today we are looking at the other new Intel desktop CPU offering: the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus that retails for just $219 USD.

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Up for review and performance benchmarking under Linux today is the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus as the other new "Arrow Lake Refresh" processor recently launched by Intel. Due to only receiving the review samples post-launch and then with re-testing all the existing CPUs under the new Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Linux testing is now wrapped up and it's performing nicely with very great value at just above $200.

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The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus features 18 cores between six P cores and 12 E cores. Like the entire Arrow Lake line-up, there is no SMT/HT support. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus features a 4.2GHz base frequency on the P cores and 3.3GHz base frequency on the E cores while the P cores can boost up to 5.3GHz. The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus has a 30MB L2 cache, 125 Watt base power rating, and a 159 Watt rated turbo power. Like the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus supports up to DDR5-7200 memory. So with these CPUs tests were done at both DDR5-6400 and DDR5-7200 speeds for evaluating the benefits of DDR5-7200 support with the Core Plus processors.

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The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus launched with a recommended customer price of $189~199 USD, but as of writing all the major Internet listings in the US put it at $219 USD, which still provides excellent value for an 18-core x86_64 processor. In this review are more than 300 benchmarks looking at how this processor performs as well as performance-per-Watt and performance-per-dollar metrics.

The processors all freshly tested under Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and based on what I have available for benchmarking included:

- Intel Core Ultra 5 245K

- Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus w DDR5-7200

- Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus

- Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus

- Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus w DDR5-7200

- Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

- AMD Ryzen 5 9600X

- AMD Ryzen 7 9700X

- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

- AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D

- AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

- AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D

- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X

- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2

From the Linux perspective, the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus should work fine under any modern Linux distribution. With Intel Arrow Lake having mature Linux support at this stage, any semi-recent kernel and other up-to-date software components should be in good shape for handling these new Intel desktop CPUs.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/review/intel-core-ultra-7-270k-plus

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=intel-core-ultra-5-250k-plus&image=intel_250k_plus_1_lrg

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=intel-core-ultra-5-250k-plus&image=intel_250k_plus_2_lrg

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=intel-core-ultra-5-250k-plus&image=intel_250k_plus_3_lrg