Two new Intel gaming Us have just had a massive drop in price, with nearly 25% being wiped off the cost of an Intel Core Ultra 7 265K on Amazon. Originally launched at a price of $394, the U is now going for $294.99, just six months after it first came out.
I originally gave this U a mediocre score of 5/10 in my Intel U is starting to look more competitive.
This U's immediate sibling, the Core Ultra 7 265KF, is also now going for the same price of $294.99, down from its original MSRP of $379. The only difference between these two chips is that the 265KF doesn't feature integrated graphics, so you may as well buy the 265K at this price. This will give you a backup graphics system if your GPU fails, or even to use as your graphics system if you're not too fussed about playing the latest PC games at high settings.
Intel has made several attempts to make its new Core Ultra desktop Us more appealing to gamers over the last few months, including a massive Cyberpunk2077 performance boost courtesy of some new game optimizations, which incredibly pushed the average frame rate up from 114fps to 218fps in my tests, when running at 1,920 x 1,080 with the high graphics preset.
However, that difference is only really remarkable because the original result was so low – it's still behind the 233fps achieved by the competition in my AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review at the same settings.
At its new price, there are still good reasons to consider the Core Ultra 265K, though. In my tests, I found it ran surprisingly cool at full load, and it's really power-efficient as well. If you're looking for a U that can handle heavy multitasking workloads, such as rendering or video encoding, quickly and without heating up to a ridiculous level, this 20-core U is a potent offering. It can handle some games better than when it was originally released as well.
If you're looking for a new chip, check out my guide to the how to install a U if you want to know how to fit your new upgrade.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. In addition, we have a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with of the team and fellow readers.