Customer Ratings & Reviews

I've been running the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K in my main rig for a couple of months now, and honestly, it's been a pleasant surprise. Coming off the rocky Arrow Lake launch last fall, Intel has rolled out BIOS updates and driver tweaks that have turned this chip from a bit of a letdown into something genuinely capable. At $400, it's positioned as a mid-high-end workhorse, and for me, it's hitting that sweet spot between gaming muscle and productivity power without breaking the bank. Let's start with gaming, since that's where I spend most of my time. Early reviews hammered the 265K for underwhelming frame rates compared to AMD's X3D chips or even Intel's own 14th-gens. But with the latest updates, especially the microcode fixes and optimized schedulers, it's finally pulling its weight. Paired with an RTX 3080 at 1440p ultra settings, I'm seeing smooth 120+ FPS in titles like Starfield, DayZ and Dune Awakening with minimal stuttering. The integrated NPU helps with upscaling and frame gen, making DLSS feel snappier than on my old setup. Where this CPU really shines, though, is in the multi-threaded grind. With 20 cores (8 performance + 12 efficiency) and 28 threads, it's a beast for compiling codebases or rendering videos. I do a lot of freelance video editing in Premiere, compressing any videos at all used to choke my i5-12600K but now it flies through in half the time. Benchmarks back it up, it's edging out the 14700K by 15-20% in Cinebench multi-core and Handbrake encodes, all while sipping less power. If you're into content creation or dev work, those extra threads make a tangible difference without the bloat of a full 285K. Comparing it head-to-head with the 12600K, which I upgraded from, the 265K feels like a supercharged V8 engine. It's not perfect, single-core speeds can lag in older games, and you'll want a solid Z890 board to unlock the full potential. Overall, if you're building or upgrading in 2025, the Core Ultra 7 265K is a smart pick. It's not the undisputed king, but Intel's iterative fixes have made it a top-notch all-rounder that's punching above its weight. Solid value, no regrets here.

Lots of hate for these Core Ultra 2 processors, but, I have found that they are fine. I spent a year in the AM5 platform reading about how its the best thing ever... but, I disagree and I wont get into all the issues and oddities of that platform. What I will say is that this CPU runs great for productivity oriented tasks, its extremely easy to cool and memory as always is a strong suit for Intel chipsets. People look past the fact that this processor does amazing in productivity and is on par with with processors that have twice the threads (Intel no longer does hyper threading) and when you see how much work it can put in with half the threads going, its pretty impressive along with being very easy to keep cool. The ITX boards available for Core Ultra 2 are insane as well. Gaming has been wonderful as well... compared to my AM5 days, way less dips and more consistent frames. Mind you I am not saying my Avg is higher than my AMD, but the lows are way more consistent and it feels better and smoother. Love the added PCIe lanes so it keeps the bifurcation easier for builders and just overall better for people. Yes, Intel had a bad launch... but, they admitted all the faults and took ownership of how that launch went. With the Windows Updates, Firmware Updates this processor is a beast and people are sleeping on it because there is so much hype on team Red. Is it perfect... absolutely not... but this feels like Core Duo all over again. Its going to get better and better.

Great productivity CPU and amazing for gaming tied with an RTX 5070 ti. Stays cool at around 34c at idle and under full load with testing spikes to the hottest at 84c with 20 minute stress test’s.

Performance is decent but at the price it's a really good upgrade, performance is on par in production workloads to top end amd chips and at half the price

Beast of a processor for 280$ (on sale) def with every penny

Nobody mentions this - it's at least in part made in the USA! Besides the various fabs across the states (OR, NM, others), the assembly of key components is done in the new Foveros fab is here in New Mexico! Reviewers are negative on this product, however. I'll concede two points. 1-Other products as of Nov. 2024 are better value. I'll pay a small premium to support a mild market pressure for local jobs, but if that's not you, hold out for a sale. 2-Upgradability. I had my last motherboard for 9 years (1st gen Ryzen). Upgrading this chip may limit options for upgrades. It's not clear if there will be future products that will fit in the motherboard you're about to buy for this chip. If so, the only thing available is a used / discounted 285k for a small bump (4-5% increase over this chip).

People say the x3d for games because one w single core itnour owrforms the 265k, however the 265k comes with a NPU and the x3d doesnt. A lot of games are startingtonutilize AI and future proofingyour gaing by bot loading the Ai processing on to your gaming chip is a good idea. In addition, the 265k shines at multi task operations beating the amds 8 core with 20! If you run only your game on your sysem and no other tasks like discord or a web browsrt or anything other than a single monitor setup then you will see better performance in game with rhis chip than the x3d. Whennyou have multiwindowws open they are takingaway that small edge the single x3d cores have and handing a clear winnto the 265k. Also at $289 vs $479 its a clear winner. I recommend the msi z890 gaming plus to pair with this. With the cost savings between that and the cpu vs the x3d you can afford the $150 jump from a 5070ti to a 5080, giving you about a 20% FPS boost had you gone with hype and bought the x3d with the cheaper gpu. If price isnt your concern jump to the i9, just know benchmarks are based on nothing else running on your system, open task manager and if you see more than one process your choice is clear 265k. Ps the 265kf is the same chip about $10 less but with jo onbaord video processing it would handle it all on the graphics card. The k is for overclockable. 265 no letter means not overclockable.

It installed easily on my msi motherboard and has taken everything I’ve thrown at with ease so far. Stays cool and handles games flawlessly with an msi 5060 card.

Working flawlessly as expected with Intel product. I chose this because the lower pricing of most cpu on sale for $339. Temperature stay cool with just a fan. I would rather spend a little less on the cpu and use more of my money towards a 50 series gpu that is going to do most the work for my gaming.

New intel arrowlake is decently fast. Very power efficient and runs extremely cool. Only issue is all the bugs since this is a new architecture. People complain but overall performance compared to other CPUS but...you would likely see no difference in FPS if u play single player with everything maxed out on 1440p or above. Arrowlake is suprisingly stable with high speed ddr5.

Screaming fast for games and apps alike compared to my old 9700K. Easy to install, would recommend.

So I am a self described nerd. Where as some guys put a lot of money into cars, mine hobby is my computer. My last two processors was a Core I7-14700 and after that an AMD 9700. I wanted something different as the 9700 ran very hot for me. I have a AMD 7900XT video card. I've always like intel but always believed that AMD was better for gaming. Not only does the Core Ultra run cooler, it also had a 2500+ improvement on my 3DMark scores. I have kept up with bios updates (I have a MSI Z-890A motherboard paired with it.) and have not had one single problem.

Love this chip series and it runs very cool under liquid cooling and under heavy loaded games

Fantastic CPU, Quick, efficient, and powerful. Really happy with the new socket as well.

I decided to upgrade completely to the I7 Ultra processor. What a huge difference from my old i5. The motherboard upgrade made it easy to install. Very pleased with Intel technology, will be upgrading more computers sson.

Great value for the cost. Must better value vs the Ryzen 9700X. It offers basically the same gaming performance but massive gains in Blender or multi-threaded workloads.

The best chip you can buy for sub 300, better than the AMD counterpart with 20 cores. The AMD chips without naming them specifically are eight cores and expensive. Borderlands that just came out recommends eight cores Also, the productivity that you can do with this chip is great video editing, multitasking and cloud computing all very fast.

excellent cpu for both productivity and gaming. super fast

Best CPU bang for buck nowadays! Amazing cpu for productivity, very stable, didn't have to mess with any settings other than XMP on my ram which runs wonderfully at 48gb 7200mhz. Seriously this cpu is underrated.

Good for gaming/workspace. Only issue is because it's new, I had to upgrade my motherboard to something that allowed for this model.