Core Ultra 7 270K Plus vs Core i7-9700K

Compare the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core i7-9700K on real gaming and productivity benchmarks, full specifications, live retailer prices and performance-per-dollar, then jump straight to the cheapest in-stock option.

From$259.00
Buy

The short answer

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the better buy here: it's both faster for gaming and gives more performance per dollar.

  • Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is about 89% faster for gaming at 1080p (gaming index 77.5 vs 41.0).
  • Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is roughly 362% faster in multi-core work, an edge in rendering, encoding and compiling.
  • Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is the cheaper chip right now, by roughly 2%.
  • Core Ultra 7 270K Plus delivers about 92% more gaming performance per dollar.
  • Core Ultra 7 270K Plus has more cores (24C/24T vs 8C/8T), which helps in heavily threaded workloads.
  • Core i7-9700K has a lower TDP (95W vs 125W), so it runs cooler and is easier to cool quietly.

Gaming performance

CPU-bound gaming score: a geometric mean of in-game frame rates at 1080p, normalized so the fastest gaming CPU we track = 100.

Core Ultra 7 270K Plus77.5
Core i7-9700K41.0

Does the CPU matter at 1440p or 4K? Much less. At higher resolutions the graphics card sets the frame rate, so the gap between two CPUs shrinks — often to nothing. The 1080p figure above is the demanding case, where the CPU is stressed and the difference actually shows.

Performance per dollar

Gaming index divided by the current lowest price — higher is better value. This moves with the market as prices change day to day.

Core Ultra 7 270K Plus30.4 / $100
Core i7-9700K15.8 / $100

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus gives about 92% more gaming performance per dollar at today’s prices.

Full platform cost

A complete-platform price needs a live CPU price and an in-stock compatible motherboard on both sides. We can’t build one for Core i7-9700K right now, which is common for older sockets like AM4 where we don’t track current boards. The gaming, value and specs comparisons still apply.

Specs head-to-head

Core Ultra 7 270K Plus
Core i7-9700K
Price (from)
$255.15
$259.00
Gaming (1080p index)
77.5
41.0
Cores / threads
24 / 24
8 / 8
Cores (P + E)
8P + 16E
Boost clock
4.9 GHz
Base clock
3.6 GHz
L3 cache
36 MB
12 MB
L2 cache
40 MB
2 MB
TDP
125W
95W
Max power
250W
210W
Socket
LGA1851
LGA1151
Memory support
DDR5, 7200
DDR4, 2666
Integrated graphics
Intel Graphics
Intel UHD 630
Architecture
Arrow Lake Refresh
Coffee Lake
Process node
TSMC N3B
Intel 14nm
MSRP
$289.00
$385.00

Productivity & compute

Core Ultra 7 270K Plus
Core i7-9700K
PassMark (multi-core)
68,520
14,398
PassMark (single-thread)
5,066
2,857
Cinebench 2024 (multi-core)
2,482
537
Cinebench 2024 (single-core)
145
80

Efficiency

Gaming performance per watt (gaming index per 100W of TDP) — higher means more frames for the heat and power.

Core Ultra 7 270K Plus62.0
Core i7-9700K43.2

Where to buy

Core Ultra 7 270K Plusfrom $255.15
RetailerAvailabilityPriceBuy
AmazonIn stock$255.15
Buy
NeweggIn stock$310.00
Buy
B&HIn stock$329.99
Buy
Core i7-9700Kfrom $259.00
RetailerAvailabilityPriceBuy
AmazonIn stock$259.00
Buy

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