Intel Core Ultra 9 285K “Arrow Lake” Delivers Strong Linux Performance Review

Earlier this month Intel announced the Core Ultra 200S “Arrow Lake” processors and today they go on sale. In turn, the review embargo also lifts for these new desktop processors. Up first today on Phoronix is the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Linux performance review for this flagship 24-core desktop processor.

The Core Ultra 9 285K is the new flagship desktop processor from Intel comprised of 24 cores via 8 P cores and 16 E cores. With Arrow Lake there is just 24 cores/threads without any Hyper Threading. The P cores top out at 5.7GHz (4.6GHz max turbo for the E cores) while the Core Ultra 9 285K also boasts 4 GPU cores for its Xe Meteor Lake era graphics and a 13 TOPS NPU.

The Core Ultra 9 285K has a 36MB Intel Smart Cache, 125 Watt base power rating, and 250 Watt maximum turbo power rating. The retail pricing on the Core Ultra 9 285K is expected to be $589~599 USD.

Tomorrow on Phoronix will be my Intel Core Ultra 5 245K Linux benchmarks. Unfortunately due to only receiving an Intel Z890 motherboard last Saturday and then running into some DDR5 memory woes, I was only able to wrap up initial benchmarks of the Core Ultra 9 285K in time for launch day with the Ultra 5 245K benchmarks finishing up later today and should be all set for publication on Friday.

A shipping delay in getting out an Intel Z890 motherboard meant that I’ve only been able to test Arrow Lake on Linux less than one week so far, but in any event it’s been working out well. Unlike Lunar Lake and the woes I ended up having with the ASUS Zenbook S 14 ultimately being attributed to the ASUS AIPT functionality and some Xe2 graphics driver bits still settling, it was less than an ideal launch experience. But here now with Arrow Lake it’s much more pleasant. The desktop support and performance is in good standing, the Arrow Lake integrated graphics driver support is largely following the mature Meteor Lake software paths, and there is even Arrow Lake NPU support within the IVPU accelerator driver if that interests you. I’ve been covering the Arrow Lake Linux enablement and it’s been pretty much squared away for months.

Running a Linux distribution like Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Ubuntu 24.10, Fedora 41, etc, you should be in good shape for the Intel Core Ultra 200S desktop processors. Of course, with new hardware I always recommend running on as new of a kernel as you are comfortable with for any missing device IDs / features, various optimizations, etc, that may be present in newer Linux kernel (and Mesa) code. But long story short the Linux support has been pleasant in all of my Core Ultra 9 285K and Cor Ultra 5 245K Linux testing thus far.

Intel supplied an ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO for my Linux testing. The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO is a high-end Z890 motherboard that is set to retail for $699 USD. This LGA-1851 motherboard boasts one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x1 slot, six M.2 slots with three of those being PCIe 5.0 x4, and a variety of other high-end desktop motherboard features for Intel Arrow Lake.

The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO has been working out well under Linux with my testing thus far but there has been some troubles around the DDR5 memory. When running with Corsair DDR5-8000 DIMMs, I was encountering compiler segmentation faults occasionally. With a few benchmarks like Y-Cruncher I also ended up hitting hangs. With some DDR5-6000 DIMMs I also experienced similar behavior. But when switching to some DDR5-6400 DIMMs as the rated memory speed for the Core Ultra 200S, everything was behaving great. Two days prior to launch I did receive a new ASUS BIOS that should address these DDR5 memory troubles. So for those planning to buy/assemble a Z890 Arrow Lake system soon, it’s important to upgrade to the very latest BIOS. Aside from those DDR5 memory annoyances that should now be resolved with the new BIOS, the rest of the experience with the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z890 HERO was in great shape for Linux users.