WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.600 You might think the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the best gaming CPU on the market, 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:08.920 but as of today, that all does not change. 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:12.040 But what if I told you that you could get 95% 00:00:12.040 --> 00:00:17.200 of its performance for 60% of the price? That is what Intel has bequeathed upon the land 00:00:17.200 --> 00:00:20.640 with their Ultra 7 270K Plus. 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.760 God, who is naming these things? Anyways, take a look at this. 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:28.080 In Cities Skylines 2, Intel's Ultra 7 270K Plus outpaces 00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:33.240 both of their previous flagships and is nipping at the heels of the 9800X3D. 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:36.440 And what's even crazier is that the second chip that they announced, 00:00:36.440 --> 00:00:40.520 the Ultra 5 250K Plus, is also a flagship killer. 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:45.960 It beats AMD's 9950X. That's a $650 CPU. 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:50.680 Oh, right, and I haven't even mentioned price. The 270K and the 250K are dropping 00:00:50.680 --> 00:00:55.000 at a mere $300 and $200 respectively. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:00.360 Prices that are actually lower than the launch prices of the CPUs they are meant to replace. 00:01:00.360 --> 00:01:04.120 It's crazy, and moving into cyberpunk, the winning streak continues. 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:10.280 Intel's 270K Plus is on the podium, while the 250K Plus outperforms the 4900K 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:16.280 and the Ryzen 9950X. It just sits slightly underneath the 265K and 1% lows, 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:21.880 but it actually has an edge in average FPS. But AMD's chips also have an edge in average frame rates, 00:01:21.880 --> 00:01:26.000 which is why I am again emphasizing the importance of 1% lows. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:29.000 Those are what indicates a smoother gaming experience. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:33.000 So what's the catch with these chips? Are they power hungry or unstable? 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:37.240 Is the price just too good to be true? It just might be. 00:01:37.240 --> 00:01:40.960 But what is good and also true is this in-depth review 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:45.040 of Intel's newest CPUs and this segue to our sponsor. 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:50.120 Continuing with our 1080p gaming results, in F124 we see AMD's whole lineup fairing pretty well, 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.280 with the 9700X going above and beyond 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:57.400 and overtaking the 270K Plus and the i9-14900K. 00:01:57.400 --> 00:02:00.680 The new 250K Plus trails the 9600X, 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:04.280 although not by much. But Intel's dominance is seriously challenged 00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:10.080 in Counter-Strike 2, where their new high-end hotness only barely catches AMD's mid-range 9600X. 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:15.080 At least Intel's new CPUs are outperforming their own team, except for the 4900K. 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:19.200 When we take all of our gaming tests into consideration, it would seem that Intel has fulfilled 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:23.640 their marketing claim. The Ultra7 270K Plus is the fastest gaming CPU 00:02:23.640 --> 00:02:28.320 Intel's ever built, even if it's not the fastest gaming CPU anyone's ever built. 00:02:28.320 --> 00:02:32.480 Landing just 5% shy of AMD's 9800X3D and 1% lows 00:02:32.480 --> 00:02:37.280 and 10% behind an average frame rate. But think of the price, the price! 00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:40.560 And the 250K is also an excellent value. 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.280 It beats the 9600X by 5% to 10% or more, 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:48.480 depending on the game, whilst demanding a very small price premium. 00:02:48.480 --> 00:02:52.760 But before you scream shill, let's address the elephant in the room and talk about why we didn't compare 00:02:52.760 --> 00:02:55.840 these new Intel chips to AMD's 9850X3D. 00:02:55.840 --> 00:03:01.560 They're more recent, fastest gaming CPU. Unfortunately, we can't test every CPU on the market, 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:05.840 so we opted to represent the 9800X3D instead of the 9850X3D, 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:11.000 because more of you guys are currently running it. And it's also very close in performance 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.280 to the 9850X3D. And if we're being entirely honest, 00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:18.080 we did not expect Intel to compete at the very top of these performance charts. 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.080 You got me, Intel. But if you are looking for even more data, 00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.640 keep an eye on lttlabs.com, where we are always adding new tests to compare. 00:03:25.640 --> 00:03:29.360 So, what changes under the hood did Intel make to refresh their Aero Lake CPUs 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:34.280 and get these impressive results? Well, first off, they bomped up the clock's 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:38.920 all-core boost on the P&E cores, with the new processor source. 00:03:39.920 --> 00:03:44.960 Sorry, they also tweaked uncore frequencies, uncore meaning everything that's not the cores, 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:48.400 and they've improved die-to-die performance and IO frequency, 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:51.760 meaning faster communication to the parts within the CPU 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:56.280 and to the other components in your system, which allowed them to support higher-speed memory. 00:03:56.280 --> 00:04:01.400 Oh, right, and there's just plain more CPU. Both of these new chips bring in extra four e-cores 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:07.520 and some bonus shared cache along for the ride, which makes the naming of these CPUs really confusing. 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:12.680 Why does the Ultra7 270K Plus have the same number of cores as the Ultra9 285K? 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:16.600 And why is it performing better? Shouldn't the higher-number CPU be better? 00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:20.360 I mean, at least the 250K Plus actually has fewer cores than the 265K, 00:04:20.360 --> 00:04:23.400 so something makes sense there, but even there, in terms of performance, 00:04:23.400 --> 00:04:28.800 the 250K Plus is looking more like a replacement for the 265K rather than the 245K. 00:04:28.800 --> 00:04:32.080 So what are they thinking with these names? 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:36.480 It's tough to say, but the main thing Intel wants you to focus on is the Plus. 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:42.840 Apparently, this new convention is going to indicate that it's for enthusiasts until whatever you're paying 00:04:42.840 --> 00:04:47.920 your marketing division, it is too much. And whatever you're paying your engineers, it ain't enough. 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:51.200 Onto productivity. Intel made some big claims in their announcement 00:04:51.200 --> 00:04:56.920 about multi-core performance, saying that the 250K Plus has a 103% lead 00:04:56.920 --> 00:05:00.600 over the 9600X. Yeah, let's see if that's true. 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:04.600 Jesus Christ! In Blender, the 250K Plus just pummels 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:11.080 AMD's price competitors, and at the high end, the 270K Plus is neck and neck with the 9950X. 00:05:11.080 --> 00:05:14.220 In Cinebench, well, bow to your new multi-core king 00:05:14.220 --> 00:05:18.860 as the 270K Plus tops the charts with his brother, Duke 250K Plus, 00:05:18.860 --> 00:05:22.020 outperforming his counterparts. On the other hand, in single-core performance, 00:05:22.020 --> 00:05:25.300 the higher boost on the 285K and 265K 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:29.140 keep them positioned above their plus-named heirs. If you're looking to decompress, 00:05:29.140 --> 00:05:32.460 you can relax knowing that these new chips also perform well in 7-Zip, 00:05:32.460 --> 00:05:36.580 even if they are a step below royalty. But in pretty much every workload, 00:05:36.580 --> 00:05:42.380 the Plus CPUs are either fighting for the top spot or absolutely dominating in price to performance. 00:05:42.380 --> 00:05:46.580 Except in Photoshop, where there is a clear platform preference for AMD, but outside of that, 00:05:46.580 --> 00:05:51.060 Intel has stolen back the productivity crowd, especially considering price to performance. 00:05:51.060 --> 00:05:55.100 So don't ignore them if you're doing any sort of productivity work in addition to your gaming. 00:05:55.100 --> 00:06:01.540 Let's say this in a way Twitch streamers can understand. Intel is value-maxing and absolutely price-mogging AMD. 00:06:01.540 --> 00:06:05.500 Well, that's crazy. After several generations of power-hungry CPUs, 00:06:05.500 --> 00:06:10.860 Intel slayed the power efficiency dragon with Aero Lake, but CPU refreshes often result 00:06:10.900 --> 00:06:14.820 in power consumption increases. So was that dragon really a hydra? 00:06:14.820 --> 00:06:20.280 Well, in gaming, power usage on the 250K plus and 270K plus has increased by 10% or more 00:06:20.280 --> 00:06:24.260 compared to their non-plus brethren. But on the whole, have a lower average 00:06:24.260 --> 00:06:28.020 and a max power consumption than AMD's chips in F124. 00:06:28.020 --> 00:06:31.940 And Intel's doing this while being pretty competitive in performance too. 00:06:31.940 --> 00:06:36.020 In Cinebench, we can see that Intel is still happy to let their chips let loose with power 00:06:36.020 --> 00:06:40.100 to really maximize performance, even if it comes at the cost of efficiency. 00:06:40.100 --> 00:06:45.220 But still, Intel might make up the difference by having quite good idle power draw, 00:06:45.220 --> 00:06:49.360 especially compared to AMD. And this well-managed power curve on the new chips 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:53.740 translates to a well-managed thermals on our Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 millimeter 00:06:53.740 --> 00:06:58.920 clad test benches. And even when drawing full power, they perform well under their rated max temp. 00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:02.340 Remember, the TJ Maxx for these CPUs is 105 degrees 00:07:02.340 --> 00:07:06.100 compared to AMD's 95. And the crazy thing is that if you really want 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:09.460 to push your chip, or if you're just like heinously thermally constrained, 00:07:09.500 --> 00:07:14.980 Intel will let you set your temperature budget to 115 degrees Celsius and still honor the warranty. 00:07:16.060 --> 00:07:19.980 That's awesome. Also kind of scary. It sounds great so far, yeah, 00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:23.140 but there's still more to talk about. Intel has a few tricks up their sleeves 00:07:23.140 --> 00:07:26.380 and it's in the form of software enhancements. 00:07:27.540 --> 00:07:31.820 Yeah, we love that. The Intel Binary Optimization Tool, or IBOT, 00:07:31.820 --> 00:07:36.220 is part of their application optimizer software and Intel considers this to be a core part 00:07:36.220 --> 00:07:40.140 of their long-term performance strategy. Basically what it does is analyze the functions 00:07:40.140 --> 00:07:45.460 being called by an application and redirects the call to a function that's better optimized for Intel hardware. 00:07:45.460 --> 00:07:49.780 Intel wants to make it very clear that they're not changing the work that's being done or skipping any steps, 00:07:49.780 --> 00:07:53.500 but it's kind of like switching from using a kit of different screwdrivers to a convenient 00:07:53.500 --> 00:07:58.300 multi-bit screwdriver from lttstore.com. It does all the same work, just more efficiently 00:07:58.300 --> 00:08:02.300 and sexier. Intel claims improvements as high as 20% 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:07.180 depending on the game when you're using IBOT, but we didn't see anything like that in our testing. 00:08:07.180 --> 00:08:12.660 There's a clear uplift when compared against the baseline condition and Intel's current version of application optimization, 00:08:12.660 --> 00:08:16.060 but it's nothing to write home about. For safety, we checked to see if IBOT 00:08:16.060 --> 00:08:20.340 was increasing power consumption. It doesn't seem to, outside of maybe the added power 00:08:20.340 --> 00:08:25.660 consumption of running your games that little bit faster. Performance is enhanced, but it's not by a lot 00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:28.740 and IBOT can be a nuisance to enable in their utility. 00:08:28.740 --> 00:08:33.100 And also like, it all depends if those programs that you use are being optimized, so who knows? 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:37.740 It could be a really big deal or just another unused setting in your driver software. 00:08:37.740 --> 00:08:42.660 Oh, and bad news for all 349 of you who bought this generation of Intel CPUs. 00:08:42.660 --> 00:08:47.540 Intel is making no promises on bringing these optimizations to their non-plus CPUs. 00:08:47.540 --> 00:08:51.140 Bummer. This is some pretty new stuff, so let us know in the comments if you'd like to see 00:08:51.140 --> 00:08:56.540 a more in-depth look at IBOT in an upcoming video. Just like Intel though, no promises. 00:08:56.540 --> 00:08:59.980 Alrighty, let's talk about pricing. It's incredible, assuming that this pricing 00:08:59.980 --> 00:09:05.340 will exist in the real world and that Intel isn't just taking a patron AMD's 9070 XT playbook. 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:09.620 599, XT 599, fake price, and hot. 00:09:11.620 --> 00:09:18.380 My gut says that this pricing is too good to be true, but if it isn't, AMD will need to respond. 00:09:18.380 --> 00:09:22.740 Whether that's by raising the performance bar with a generational refresh that actually does something, 00:09:22.740 --> 00:09:27.140 looking at you the 9850X3D, or by slashing retail pricing of their current lineup, 00:09:27.140 --> 00:09:30.180 or both. I just hope that these great prices and products 00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:34.100 from Intel are not just here to score headlines in a time where no one can afford 00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:37.580 to build a computer anyways. It's just so performative. 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:41.380 By the way, ladies, I've been getting really into Machalates and Claro. 00:09:41.380 --> 00:09:44.820 What a talent. And I listen to, I know why the cagebird sings on Blinkist 00:09:44.820 --> 00:09:50.060 because you know, I'm an ally. And also, I'm segueing to our sponsor. 00:09:50.060 --> 00:09:53.100 Thanks for watching this video. Check out our review of the 9850X3D 00:09:53.100 --> 00:09:55.900 to see more about the bestest CPUs in the game.