Intel has announced two new desktop processors (the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus) as part of its Arrow Lake Refresh lineup. The company hopes the new chips will help strengthen its position in the desktop gaming market after several challenging CPU generations.

Both processors focus on hybrid core designs, improved memory speeds, and software optimization tools to deliver better gaming and productivity performance. Retail availability is expected to begin on March 26.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus carries 24 cores and 24 threads across eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, matching the core configuration of the higher-end Core Ultra 9 285K. P-cores boost to 5.5GHz with a 4.1GHz base. Efficiency cores run at a 3.4GHz base, 100MHz higher than the previous generation. A CPU-to-memory controller link running 900MHz faster improves data throughput between the processor and system memory. The chip is priced at $300 and maintains a 125W TDP.

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus sits at $200 with 18 cores: six P-cores at 4.4GHz base and 12 E-cores at 3.7GHz. It carries 30MB of Smart Cache, 6MB more than the 245K. Intel claims a 103% average multicore advantage over the Ryzen 5 9600X based on first-party testing. A KF variant without integrated graphics will also be available for builds using a discrete GPU.

Both chips support DDR5-7200 memory. Higher-density 4-rank CUDIMM support is coming to compatible 800-series motherboards through new board variants arriving later in 2026.

Alongside the hardware refresh, Intel introduced a new Binary Optimization Tool designed to improve game performance. The system works as a binary translation layer, optimizing certain titles without requiring developers to update their code. According to Intel’s internal testing:

• Shadow of the Tomb Raider showed up to 39% performance improvement
• Assassin’s Creed: Shadows saw smaller gains of around 4%

Independent benchmarks will ultimately determine how the new processors perform compared to competitors.

Rather than introducing a completely new model, the Arrow Lake Refresh generation focuses on smaller upgrades to Intel’s hybrid core design and software optimization. The chips continue Intel’s approach of pairing performance cores with large numbers of efficiency cores to boost multithreaded performance and improve power efficiency.

With AMD still pushing hard in desktop CPUs, these new processors are Intel’s latest effort to win back ground in the gaming desktop market.

Independent third-party benchmark results are not yet available ahead of the March 26 launch.