Intel just unveiled its fastest gaming processors yet with the Core Ultra 200S Plus series. The series features two new CPUs that promise 15% geomean faster gaming performance than the current Core Ultra 2-series CPUs.
Upgrading your gaming PC is a daunting task in 2026 with the crazy prices of RAM and SSDs. Finding a good deal on a GPU is similarly challenging. The new Plus CPUs, however, are well priced and they support all current motherboards with an 800-series chipset.
The new Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus CPUs
The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is $200, while the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is $300. They have several upgrades over the 245K and 265K starting with four more E cores. The 250K Plus has a 6P+12E configuration and the 270K Plus has an 8P+16E configuration. For reference, the 245K and 265K were 6P+8E and 8P+12E, respectively.
Gaming performance uplift: 250K Plus • 270K Plus
With these extra cores, Intel claims that the 250K Plus will have double the multi-threaded performance of an AMD Ryzen 5 9600X. That is a 6-core, 12-thread CPU that launched in 2024 at $280. This refers to what Intel calls “content creation” – rendering with Blender and Cinebench, for example.
Multi-threaded performance boost and testing configuration
It’s not just the extra cores, though. The cores themselves run at essentially the same frequencies as on the non-Plus CPUs. However, other parts of the CPU, especially the memory interconnects, are running 900MHz faster, which significantly reduces latency.
Now is probably not the best time for it, but you can pair the Plus CPUs with faster RAM. The previous models supported 6400 MT/s RAM, while the Plus CPUs can handle 7200 MT/s DDR5 – and even 8,000 MT/s if you enable the Boost BIOS profile.
And then there is the special sauce called the Intel Binary Optimization Tool. In short, this takes game code that may have been optimized for other platforms, like a console for example, and optimizes it to run faster on the Intel CPU. The results above use this tool.
The new Intel Binary Optimization Tool
This sounds similar to how GPU drivers bring game-specific optimizations with every update – Intel will add game profiles that improve the performance of a particular title, so it will improve old and new titles alike.
We mentioned that the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus support all current motherboards with an 800-series chipset. And they do. However, Intel has improved motherboards in the works that will offer initial support for 4-Rank CUDIMM memory, which can pack up to 128GB per module. With two of these, you can have up to 256GB in one system. These motherboards are coming later this year.
Upcoming motherboards will offer initial support for 4-Rank CUDIMM RAM
As for the two Plus CPUs, they will be available from March 26. If you prefer, pre-built systems with the new CPUs will also become available at the same time. Intel has sent samples to reviewers for testing and says to expect reviews “a couple of days” before the March 26 launch.
Also, Intel says that there will be more “Plus” CPUs in the future – they will be the ultimate versions of that generation’s CPU technology and will offer an upgrade path that won’t require throwing out your motherboard.
