Core Ultra 9 290K Plus killed off as Intel scraps flagship CPU release

Intel has officially confirmed that the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus will not be released, putting an end to months of rumors and leaks surrounding the supposed flagship Arrow Lake Refresh processor. In a statement to PC Games Hardware, the company explained that it is focusing instead on more broadly positioned models within the Core Ultra 200S Plus lineup.

Florian Maislinger, Intel Germany’s Tech Communication Manager, noted that the recently introduced Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus already meet the company’s goals for performance and value. Because of this, Intel determined that adding another high-end SKU wasn’t necessary.

"Intel is excited to deliver exceptional value with our Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus series processors. The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus are positioned to deliver outstanding gaming performance and incredible value compared to our competition. Our objective was to maximize performance for the desktop SKUs that are most widely available. As a result, Intel is not launching a U9 290K Plus SKU"

Florian Maislinger, Tech Communication Manager, Intel Germany to PCGamesHardware.de

While the 290K Plus had been silently dropped from partner roadmaps previously, Intel's latest announcement represents the company's inaugural public acknowledgment of the project's cancellation.

Interestingly, the processor had already surfaced in leaks and benchmark listings, suggesting it was fairly advanced in development. Reports indicate that engineering samples had been distributed both internally and externally, pointing to a decision that came relatively late in the process.

One of the main reasons behind the cancellation appears to be overlap within the lineup. The 290K Plus was expected to feature a 24-core design, placing it very close to both the Core Ultra 9 285K and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. In fact, the 270K Plus can reportedly match or even outperform the 285K in certain scenarios due to optimizations, reducing the need for another top-tier chip.

For now, the Core Ultra 9 285K remains Intel’s flagship desktop processor, with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus positioned just below it in the updated Arrow Lake family. A new flagship for the LGA 1851 platform is unlikely to arrive until Intel’s next-generation Nova Lake-S CPUs are ready.

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