SYSTEM ANALYZER

Rate My PC: Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + Intel Arc A350

Get a comprehensive performance analysis of your gaming rig with detailed benchmarks, bottleneck detection, and upgrade recommendations

Build Configuration

Select your components

PROCESSOR (CPU)

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GRAPHICS CARD (GPU)

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86 Score

Top 14% Ranking

86 / 100

HIGH-END

Power Build

Top 14% of systems. Excellent for 1440p Ultra or 4K High gaming.

1440p Ultra4K High

System Balance Analysis

CPU vs GPU performance ratio

GPU Bottleneck

CPU

98%

GPU

74%

Your GPU is limiting system performance. Consider upgrading to a more powerful graphics card to better utilize your CPU.

PROCESSOR

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus

84,003 Benchmark Score

Top 2% Market Ranking

View Full Specs →

GRAPHICS CARD

Intel Arc A350

0 Benchmark Score

Top 26% Market Ranking

View Full Specs →

Market Position

How your build compares to others

Budget

0-30

Mid-Range

30-60

High-End

60-85

Enthusiast

85-100

Your Build

Game Performance Benchmarks

Real-world 4K FPS in popular titles

View All Games →

Performance Insights

Tips to maximize your system

Strong Performance

Excellent for 1440p gaming. Most games will run at high/ultra settings smoothly.

Bottleneck Detected

GPU Bottleneck - Upgrading the weaker component will improve overall performance.

Compatible Games See what you can play Compare CPUs Find upgrades Compare GPUs Find upgrades

Performance Tiers Explained

90-100

Ultimate

4K Ultra gaming, VR ready, ray tracing enabled, professional workloads

4K 60+ FPS VR Ready

70-89

High-End

1440p Ultra or 4K High settings, excellent for modern AAA titles

1440p Ultra 4K High

50-69

Mid-Range

1080p Ultra or 1440p Medium, great value for most gamers

1080p Ultra 1440p Med

30-49

Entry Level

1080p Medium settings, suitable for eSports and older titles

1080p Med eSports

0-29

Legacy

Basic gaming, older titles, consider upgrading for modern games

720p-1080p Low Older Games

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the Intel Arc A350 is an unusual combination: a flagship-tier desktop CPU sitting in the 96th percentile of all processors, matched with a compact, entry-level discrete GPU that occupies the 50th percentile of all graphics cards. The build's combined percentile of 73 reflects that imbalance — this is a seriously fast compute machine with a modest graphics layer attached. Note that no measured FPS data exists for this exact pairing in the database; all frame-rate discussion below is estimated from the benchmark scores rather than directly observed.

CPU Analysis

The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread part from Intel's Core Ultra Series 2, codenamed Arrow Lake Refresh and built on TSMC's 3 nm process. The die measures 243 mm² and packs 17,800 million transistors. Base clock sits at 3.70 GHz with a boost to 5.80 GHz, and the multiplier is unlocked, so overclocking headroom is available for builders who want it.

The cache hierarchy is generous: 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 36 MB slab of L3. Memory support is DDR5 on a dual-channel bus delivering 115.2 GB/s of bandwidth, and ECC memory is supported — a feature that normally lives on workstation platforms and matters for long-running compute jobs where data integrity counts.

The benchmark scores tell a clear story. A Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 51,731 alongside a single-core score of 7,303 means this chip delivers near-flagship throughput in heavily threaded rendering while remaining strong in lightly threaded, latency-sensitive work. The R20 figures — 21,727 multi-core and 3,067 single-core — and the R15 figures of 5,214 and 736 show the same shape consistently across generations of the test. PassMark rounds it out: 60,860 in the multithread test, 4,823 single-thread, 3,315 in physics, plus strong showings in integer math (166,194), floating point math (214,760), data compression (698,346), encryption (52,563), extended instructions (52,338), and string sorting (79,744).

In practical terms, that translates into fast code compilation, quick video exports, smooth 3D rendering, and snappy everyday responsiveness. The 125 W TDP is the rated figure; a chip with this performance profile warrants capable cooling, though the FACT PACK does not specify a cooler.

Benchmark Performance

The CPU's average benchmark score across the database is 84,003, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs — top-tier territory. Its nearest rivals make that concrete. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K averages 83,807, just 0.2 percent behind, meaning the 290K Plus is essentially a rounding-error improvement over its sibling. The AMD EPYC 4584PX (83,090) trails by 1.1 percent and the EPYC 9135 (82,980) by 1.2 percent, while the EPYC 7F72 actually edges ahead at 85,072, a 1.3 percent lead. So this CPU trades blows with server-class silicon — remarkable for a desktop part.

The GPU side is thinner on data. The Arc A350 has no benchmark scores recorded in the database and an average benchmark score of zero, so its position rests entirely on its specification sheet and its 50th-percentile ranking against all GPUs. That percentile is the middle of the pack by definition: not a rendering powerhouse, not bottom-tier either.

The combined build percentile of 73 is the honest summary. A 96th-percentile CPU dragging a 50th-percentile GPU lands the pairing in the upper third of all builds overall — but almost all of that standing comes from the processor. Any workload that leans on the GPU will not feel like a 73rd-percentile machine; any workload that leans on the CPU will feel faster than that number suggests.

Upgrade Path and Platform

The platform is Intel Socket 1851, which is the upgrade path's anchor. Memory is DDR5, dual-channel, with 115.2 GB/s of bandwidth and ECC support if the workload demands it. PCIe connectivity is Gen 5 with 20 CPU lanes — enough for a fast primary GPU, an NVMe drive at full speed, and still headroom to spare. The Arc A350 itself only needs a PCIe 4.0 x8 link, so it consumes a modest slice of that budget.

Power is where this build is refreshingly undemanding on the GPU side. The A350 has a 25 W TDP, a single-slot footprint, and no dedicated power connectors; the suggested PSU for the card is just 200 W. The CPU's rated TDP is 125 W. Add those figures together and a modest PSU comfortably runs this configuration — the FACT PACK gives no total system recommendation, but the component numbers indicate low overall draw. That also means the power budget has enormous room for a far larger GPU later, and that is the obvious next upgrade: replacing the 50th-percentile A350 with a substantially faster card would bring the build's graphics tier up to match its 96th-percentile processor, with the Gen 5 slot ready for it. The A350 is also listed as end-of-life, succeeded by Battlemage, which reinforces that the GPU is the replaceable half of this pairing.

FAQ

Q: How does the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus compare to its nearest rivals?

A: Its average benchmark score of 84,003 puts it 0.2 percent ahead of the Core Ultra 9 285K (83,807), 1.1 percent ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX (83,090), and 1.2 percent ahead of the EPYC 9135 (82,980). The AMD EPYC 7F72 is faster, at 85,072 — a 1.3 percent gap in its favor.

Q: Is this CPU good for single-threaded work?

A: Yes. It scores 7,303 in Cinebench R23 single-core, 4,823 in PassMark single-thread, and 3,067 in Cinebench R20 single-core — numbers consistent with its overall 96th-percentile CPU ranking.

Q: Are there measured game frame rates for this CPU and GPU combination?

A: No. The database contains no measured FPS data for this exact pairing, so any frame-rate estimates here are derived from the benchmark scores rather than direct testing.

Q: How much power does this build need?

A: The CPU is rated at 125 W TDP and the GPU at 25 W TDP; the suggested PSU listed for the Arc A350 alone is 200 W. No total-system PSU figure is provided, but the component ratings indicate modest total power draw with substantial headroom for a GPU upgrade.

Q: What memory does the platform support?

A: DDR5 on a dual-channel bus with 115.2 GB/s of bandwidth, and ECC memory is supported.

Q: Is the Arc A350 a strong gaming card?

A: It sits at the 50th percentile of all GPUs with 4 GB of GDDR6, 768 shading units, and 3.072 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput — mid-tier by ranking, and entry-level by specification. It has no benchmark scores recorded in the database.

Q: Can the CPU be overclocked?

A: Yes — the multiplier is unlocked.

Who Should Build It

This configuration suits users whose work is CPU-bound first and GPU-bound second. Software developers get a 96th-percentile processor with 24 threads, strong single-core results (7,303 in R23), and 60,860 in PassMark multithread — fast compiles, smooth containerized workloads, responsive IDEs. Content creators working in video editing and 3D rendering benefit directly from the 51,731 R23 multi-core score, though the 4 GB of GPU VRAM will cap GPU-accelerated effects and viewport complexity. Students and small-business workstation users get ECC support and quick everyday performance from a chip that trades blows with EPYC server silicon. Gamers are the odd group out: a 50th-percentile, 4 GB card is a low-resolution, settings-reduced proposition, and the CPU is dramatically overqualified for it. High-refresh gamers should treat the A350 as a placeholder. The right buyer here is someone who needs compute now and plans a GPU upgrade later.

GPU Analysis

The Arc A350 is an Alchemist-generation Xe-HPG card built on TSMC's 6 nm process, with the DG2-128 chip measuring 157 mm² and carrying 7,200 million transistors at a density of 45.9 million per mm². It has 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, 24 ROPs, and 6 RT cores. Base and boost clocks are both 2000 MHz, giving a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. FP32 compute is 3.072 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 6.144 TFLOPS in a 2:1 ratio. Tensor core count is not specified.

The memory subsystem is the card's defining constraint: 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 64-bit bus, running at 1937 MHz (15.5 Gbps effective) for 124.0 GB/s of bandwidth. That is barely more bandwidth than the CPU's own dual-channel DDR5 system (115.2 GB/s), which tells you this is a small card by design. For rendering workloads, the 4 GB frame buffer is the hard wall — modern game assets and 3D scenes will exceed it, forcing texture streaming and quality reductions. The 6 RT cores enable hardware ray tracing on paper, with DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6 support, but the compute budget behind them is modest.

The card connects over PCIe 4.0 x8, is single-slot, draws 25 W, needs no power connectors, and is listed with no display outputs — an unusual trait suggesting OEM-oriented variants. Production status is end-of-life, with Battlemage as the successor line. With no benchmark scores in the database, its 50th-percentile ranking is the only performance anchor: a mid-pack card by classification, entry-level by specification.

Balance and Bottleneck

This build is GPU-bottlenecked in essentially every graphics workload, and the percentile spread is the proof. The CPU sits at the 96th percentile; the GPU at the 50th. That 46-point gap means the processor will spend most of its capacity idle while gaming — the A350 simply cannot feed frames to it fast enough for the Ultra 9 to break a sweat. Estimated from the scores, frame rates in games will track the GPU's mid-tier capabilities almost entirely, with CPU headroom left over for background tasks like streaming or voice chat without affecting the render load.

Flip the workload and the bottleneck reverses. In CPU-bound tasks — compiling code at 60,860 PassMark multithread, rendering scenes at 51,731 in R23, compressing data at 698,346 — the A350 is irrelevant, and the machine performs like the near-flagship system it is. The combined 73rd percentile reflects this split personality. Streaming is the one workload where the pairing accidentally makes sense: the GPU sets the output frame rate while the 24-thread CPU handles encoding, browser overhead, and capture without strain. For pure gaming at high refresh rates, the imbalance is severe and the GPU is the clear limiter; for compute, there is no bottleneck at all.

Build Overview

This is a desktop build, per the buildClass field, pairing Intel's top-tier Arrow Lake Refresh flagship with an entry-level Alchemist discrete card. Its overall tier is best described as an upper-tier compute platform with a mid-tier graphics layer: 96th percentile CPU, 50th percentile GPU, 73rd percentile combined. The all-Intel pairing keeps the ecosystem simple — one vendor for CPU, GPU, and even the integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU on the processor itself, which notably outclasses the A350 in the feature sense by existing at all on a 3 nm flagship die. The build makes sense as a compute-first machine with a placeholder GPU: Socket 1851, Gen 5 lanes, DDR5 with ECC, and unlocked overclocking give it a long runway, while the 25 W, single-slot A350 fills the graphics role at minimal cost to power and space until something faster takes its place.

Usage Scenarios

High-refresh gaming: Not this build's strength, and the numbers say so plainly. The GPU's 50th percentile and 124.0 GB/s of bandwidth cap estimated frame rates well below what the 96th-percentile CPU could deliver, and the 4 GB frame buffer forces settings reductions in modern titles. Expect playable, modest frame rates at lower resolutions — the CPU will never be the limiter.

Streaming: The most coherent use of this pairing. Estimated from the scores, the A350 sets the game's frame rate while the 24-thread CPU — 60,860 in PassMark multithread — absorbs encoding and scene composition without impacting the render load. CPU headroom is enormous; the GPU is the ceiling.

Video editing: Strong on the CPU side, constrained on the GPU side. The 51,731 R23 multi-core score drives fast timeline scrubbing and CPU-based exports, but GPU-accelerated effects will hit the 4 GB VRAM wall quickly. Editors who lean on CPU rendering get excellent results; those relying on GPU acceleration will want an upgrade.

3D rendering: CPU render engines will fly — the 51,731 R23 and 21,727 R20 multi-core scores are workstation-class, and ECC memory adds stability for long render jobs. GPU-path rendering is limited by the A350's 3.072 TFLOPS and 4 GB buffer. Treat it as a CPU rendering machine.

Software development: Excellent fit. The 7,303 single-core R23 score keeps IDEs and interpreters snappy, the 60,860 multithread score crunches through large builds and test suites, and 20 Gen 5 lanes plus dual-channel DDR5 at 115.2 GB/s keep storage and memory from stalling the CPU.

Student and office work: Overkill in the best way. Documents, browsing, and office suites sit far below this machine's floor; the 96th-percentile CPU means years of headroom, ECC support protects important data, and the low GPU power draw keeps total system consumption modest.

Rate My PC: Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + Intel Arc A350

Power Build

System Balance Analysis

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus

Intel Arc A350

Market Position

Game Performance Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

Performance Insights

Strong Performance

Bottleneck Detected

Performance Tiers Explained

Ultimate

High-End

Mid-Range

Entry Level

Legacy

CPU Analysis

Benchmark Performance

Upgrade Path and Platform

FAQ

Who Should Build It

GPU Analysis

Balance and Bottleneck

Build Overview

Usage Scenarios

4K Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

1440p Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

1080p Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

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