(Image credit: Intel)

Intel is reportedly preparing to launch its Arrow Lake refresh, aka 16th Gen, next month with at least three SKUs present at launch. One of those is the Core Ultra 250K Plus, the successor to the existing Core Ultra 245K, with a bumped-up core config and tuned clock speeds. While we've seen benchmarks leaks for other ARL-R chips before, the 250K Plus has just appeared for the first time on Geekbench.

(Image credit: Future)

This processor ended up scoring 3,113 points in the single-core test and walked away with 15,251 points in the multi-core test. Those are some pretty solid numbers and in line with what we expect from a new Core Ultra 5 desktop processor. For some reason, Geekbench's CPU database doesn't include the 245K so we don't have a direct point of comparison, but we can still search for individual runs on the platform.

Most of the 245K results listings show a single-core score under 3,000, but multi-core is almost always between 17,000-18,000, which means the Core Ultra 250K Plus tested here was ahead in one place but trailing in the other. This leaked run was conducted on an Asus Prime Z890-P WIFI motherboard with 32GB of RAM, and the processor boosted up to 5.3 GHz during testing. That lines up with the previous leak from last year.

The Core Ultra 250K Plus is supposed to be an 18-core processor with 6 P-cores and 12 E-cores (up from 6P+8E on 245K). It features a 100 MHz increase in both of those core boost clocks, along with 100 MHz decrease in the E-core base clock speeds. Like other Arrow Lake refresh chips, it has support for native DDR5-7200 and will use the existing LGA 1851 socket, yet there are new motherboards planned.

This will be Intel's last hurrah in the desktop segment until Nova Lake is expected to debut at the end of this year, marking a true next-gen leap similar to what Panther Lake has done on mobile. Recently, prices and embargo dates for these ARL-R chips leaked out and showed a very enticing picture, while confirming that the Core Ultra 9 SKU is dead for this generation.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.