Intel Core Ultra 3 205 Arrow Lake CPU Runs Circles Around i3-14100 In Budget Benchmark Battle

A thesis that the author has been pondering for months now—ever since we reported on the Ryzen 5 5600G's surprisingly competent gaming chops—is the idea that computers have been 'fast enough' for a while now, and even enthusiasts might consider a lower-end processor if it suits their needs. Would you ever buy a "3" level CPU for your own use, dear reader?


What if we told you that the new Core Ultra 3 205 comes with four fast Lion Cove P-cores and four efficient Skymont E-cores, that it is capable of sustaining over 200 FPS in Valorant at native 1080p without a graphics card, and that you can find full systems based on this CPU for around $360?


Well, you can if you're in South Korea, anyway. That's where YouTube channel BullsLab is based, and he managed to get ahold of one of the new entry-level Arrow Lake CPUs. This chip was actually revealed fully eight months ago, but that turned out to have been an accident and the information was pulled from Intel's website. The chip showed up at overseas retail last month, but it looks like it may finally be launching for real soon.


There's a pretty strong argument to be made that the vast majority of PC users, including most PC gamers, really have absolutely no need for more than eight CPU cores. This Core Ultra 3 chip is hampered slightly by a relatively low peak clock rate of just 4.9 GHz and a relatively small 15MB L3 cache, but thanks to Arrow Lake's high ST performance, it will still likely obliterate most chips in the $150 price range on lightly-threaded tasks.


You can check out BullsLab's video if you like; it's been AI-dubbed in English, so you don't even have to read subtitles. However, it's a YouTube Short, so it's only a minute long. Hopefully we can get one of these entry-level Core Ultra CPUs on the bench to see how it compares against the similarly-priced Ryzen 5 7600—especially when paired with a budget DDR5 memory kit.